UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL 


+ + + + + 


NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL 


SAFETY AND HEALTH 


+ + + + + 


ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND 


 WORKER HEALTH 


+ + + + + 


 84th MEETING 


+ + + + + 


WEDNESDAY 


JUNE 20, 2012 


+ + + + + 


The meeting convened at 8:30 


a.m., Mountain Daylight Time, in the 


Courtyard Marriott, 3347 Cerrillos Road, 


Santa Fe, New Mexico, James M. Melius, 


Chairman, presiding. 


PRESENT: 


JAMES M. MELIUS, Chairman 


HENRY ANDERSON, Member 


JOSIE BEACH, Member 


BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member 


R. WILLIAM FIELD, Member* 


DAVID KOTELCHUCK, Member 


JAMES E. LOCKEY, Member 


WANDA I. MUNN, Member 


JOHN W. POSTON, SR., Member 


GENEVIEVE S. ROESSLER, Member 


PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
LORETTA R. VALERIO, Member 


PRESENT: (Continued) 


PAUL L. ZIEMER, Member 


TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official 


REGISTERED AND/OR PUBLIC COMMENT 


PARTICIPANTS 


ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH Contractor 


ALLEN, DAVE, DCAS 


ANIGSTEIN, BOB, SC&A 


ARENDS, JONI 


BONSIGNORE, ANTOINETTE* 


CRUZ, RUBEN, CDC 


EVASKOVICH, ANDREW 


FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A 


GLOVER, SAM, DCAS 


HINNEFELD, STU, DCAS 


KINMAN, JOSH, DCAS Contractor 


KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL 


LEWIS, GREG, DOE 


LIN, JENNY, HHS 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MCFEE, MATTHEW, ORAU Team 


MCKEEL, DAN* 


NETON, JIM, DCAS 


RUTHERFORD, LAVON, DCAS 


STIVER, JOHN, SC&A 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 

Page 

Welcome 

by Dr. James Melius, Chair 

5 

GSI SEC Petition 

by Mr. David Allen, NIOSH 

Dr. Robert Anigstein, SC&A 

Dr. Paul Ziemer, WG Chair 

Dr. Dan McKeel, Co-Petitioner 

8 

Clarksville Facility SEC Petition 

by Mr. Stuart Hinnefeld, NIOSH 

102 

Board Work Session 127 

Mound Plant SEC Petition 

by Dr. James Neton, NIOSH 

Ms. Josie Beach, WG Chair 

151 

Board Work Session 183 

Titanium Alloys Manufacturing SEC 

by Dr. James Neton, NIOSH 

236 

Board Work Session 

by Dr. James Melius, Chair 

277 

Public Comment 300 

NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 


(8:30 a.m.) 

CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Good morning, 


everybody. We're ready to get started, our 


second day of Meeting 84 of the Advisory 


Board and I'll turn it over to Ted to do the 


roll call. 


MR. KATZ: Sure. Thank you. So 


good morning, everyone and welcome to the 


second day of the Advisory Board meeting. 


Let's begin with roll call and let's just 


run down the line alphabetically and if you 


have a conflict with any session today, 


please note that as you register your 


attendance. 


 (Roll Call.) 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Here, no 


conflict. And, Ted, while we're talking 


about conflicts, let me correct the record 


from yesterday where I declared I had no 


conflicts. I had forgotten that I actually 


am conflicted on Los Alamos from 2000 


onward. And had ignored or forgotten the 


fact that some of the discussion overlapped 


into that period. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Although I didn't enter into it, 


I had remained at the table. So I'm going 


to attribute this to old age and 


forgetfulness, but for the record, I am 


conflicted on Los Alamos. 


MR. KATZ: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. 


I fell down on that one as well because I'm 


supposed to be watching this as well. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: You'll have to 


have a different excuse than me. 


MR. KATZ: Well, I don't have 


quite the years, but I have the memory 


problems. 


MEMBER LOCKEY: I probably should 


say the same thing for yesterday because I 


am conflicted Fernald and I had forgotten. 


I'd see workers from Mound, so that's why 


the conflict is announced. 


MR. KATZ: Very good. I don't 


see many faces from the public here in the 


room, but for folks on the line, the 


presentations today are all posted on the 


NIOSH website under the meeting section. Go 


to the date for today and you'll see those 


all as attachments on the link. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

So you can read along with the 


presentations today. Also for folks on the 


line, please, one, mute your phones. You 


press *6 to mute your phone, if you don't 


have a mute button, and pressing *6 again 


will unmute your phone, but please keep your 


phones muted for the session. 


Also, please do not put the call 


on hold at any point, but hang up and dial 


back in if you need to leave the call for a 


piece. And, yes, that takes care of my 


notices. Jim. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Our 


first order of business now, and Dr. Ziemer 


is ready and set to go, is the GSI SEC 


petition and we will have a series of 


presentations here and then some Board 


discussion, but we'll start with Dr. Ziemer. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Thank you, Dr. 


Melius. The focus here is on SEC Petition 


00105, which is for General Steel 


Industries. I will kick this off with some 


introductory remarks, then we'll here from 


NIOSH and from SC&A. 


I will return to the podium to 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

summarize the Work Group's recommendations 


and we will also have an opportunity to hear 


from the co-petitioner, Dr. Dan McKeel. 


So I'll kick this off with a 


little background information on the 


petition. It was submitted in February 2008 


and certified -- qualified, rather, for 


evaluation in May of 2008. The Evaluation 


Report was issued by NIOSH on October 3rd, 


2008, and then we had an SC&A review of the 


Evaluation Report, and that was issued on 


July 24th, 2009. 


I've put, on this slide, for your 


information, the proposed Class Definition 


and the actual Class as evaluated by NIOSH. 


And as you lay those two side by side, they 


appear to be almost identical and I'll 


simply point out that the difference is on 


the ending date. 


You see the date on the original 


petition from January 1st, '53 through 


December 31st, '66, and then the residual 


period description. That ending date was 


changed based on information that NIOSH had 


obtained and changed to June 30th, '66, and 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

then the residual period starting date 


begins July 1st, '66. 


So slight differences in the 


original proposed Class and the actual Class 


as evaluated by NIOSH. 


Following the Evaluation Report 


and the review by SC&A, there have been a 


number of meetings and a great deal of 


additional information. Actually, an 


extensive amount of additional information 


arose following those two reports. 


A great deal of it provided by 


the co-petitioner, Dr. McKeel, through FOIA 


requests and other means, as well as 


information from former workers and site 


experts. 


The NIOSH website includes a 


number of White Papers. The Board Members 


have been made aware of these and you've 


received a number of emails citing a variety 


of White Papers over the past month. 


There's specific information and critiques 


from the co-petitioner as well as the White 


Papers from NIOSH and SC&A. 


The Work Group has met 12 times 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

since the Evaluation Report was issued in 


2008. Most of the focus of those meetings, 


although not a 100 percent, has been on GSI, 


which is part of the TBD-6000 through 


Appendix BB, and then a great deal of focus 


in the last couple of years on the SEC 


Petition 00105. 


So the format today will have 


NIOSH review its proposed models for 


reconstructing dose at GSI in support of its 


recommendation to deny an SEC Class, and 


Dave Allen will present the NIOSH-proposed 


models. 


Then we'll hear from SC&A, and 


Bob Anigstein will present the summary of 


their findings and their position on the 


NIOSH dose models. I then will return and 


summarize the Work Group's recommendations 


and then we will hear from co-petitioner Dr. 


McKeel, who will present his issues and 


concerns with the NIOSH proposal and the 


Work Group recommendations. 


So let's call on Dave Allen now 


to present the NIOSH information and 


material. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

MR. ALLEN: Good morning. My 


name is Dave Allen, as Dr. Ziemer said, and 


I'm here to provide a little bit of 


background on GSI, primarily, list the 


sources of radiation. Can you hear me 


better now? 


I was going to list the sources 


of radiation at GSI as well as some of the 


key sources of data that we have, and then, 


as Dr. Ziemer said, I'd go through what our 


method is intended to be for estimating the 


dose to those. 


A little background, the first 


couple of bullets, Dr. Ziemer has already 


covered. The work that was done at GSI that 


covered the facility was that they 


radiographed pieces of uranium metal brought 


over from Mallinckrodt. 


They did not correct any defects 


or manipulate the metal in any way. All 


they did was to X-ray the metal, and then 


provide the X-rays to Mallinckrodt, and hand 


back the metal to them. 


From that, the sources of 


radiation at GSI for internal includes dust 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

from uranium corrosion products, even though 


they didn't grind on it, cut on it, or 


anything like that, uranium will still 


corrode. 


There'll be some uranium oxide on 


the surface and as you handle it by hand, or 


fork truck, or crane or some sort of chain 


fall, will slough some of that off and it 


can become airborne. 


Primarily, it was a steel plant. 


They made steel castings and during the 


covered period that would still be covered 


dose, so we had to deal with the activation 


products in the steel. 


For external dose, one of the big 


sources of radiation is the betatrons 


themselves. The betatrons were high-power 


industrial X-ray machines, approximately 25 


MeV, and when I say direct radiation from 


that in the bullet, I'm talking about all 


sources of direct, which is what makes it 


through the shield to anybody that may be 


nearby. Also, sky shine, scatter, et 

cetera. 

We also estimated the dose from 

NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

radiation from the activated steel because 


the steel castings would get activated, or 


it could get activated, after they were X-


rayed with the betatrons. 


We also have direct radiation 


from the uranium metal itself. Being a 


steel plant, they also had radiography with 


isotopic sources elsewhere in the plant and 


we estimated the dose from that. And they 


also had two portable X-ray machines; 250 


kVp X-ray machines. 


The betatrons, they actually had 


two and these were not portable X-ray 


machines. These were actually buildings. 


The head of the betatron itself was 


manipulated by crane in the shooting room of 


this building. And some of the capacitors 


and ancillary equipment were on the second 


floor above a control room, so these were 


not portable pieces of equipment. 


There were two buildings 


specially built for these betatrons. 


Onsite, they referred to them as the new 


betatron and the old betatron. The old one 


was built in 1952 and had a reported maximum 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

energy of 24 MeV. 


The new one was actually built in 


Eddystone in the '50s, and when the 


Eddystone, Pennsylvania plant closed down, 


they moved that equipment to GSI, built a 


new building for it, and that was in 1963. 


And the reported maximum energy on that was 


25 MeV. 


And with those kind of energies, 


the photon energy is actually above the 


threshold and it's high enough to create 


some activation of isotopes in steel, 


uranium, et cetera. 


This is a drawing of the two 


betatron buildings. The one on the left is 


the old betatron building and you can see, 


one of the predominant features is this 


thick wall that you can see wrapped around 


there. This wall is actually two 1-foot 


thick concrete walls with 8 feet of sand 


poured in-between them. 


All together, it forms a 10-foot 


thick shield wall. And the shield area is 


the area that's encircled on three sides and 


then the fourth side includes, what I'd 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

call, an equipment tunnel. 


You've got a similar design in 


the new betatron building with the thick 


walls, et cetera, but the old betatron was 


built several hundred feet away from any 


other building, whereas, the new betatron 


was actually attached to their existing 


production buildings. 


If you look on the left-hand side 


of the busy drawing of the new betatron, you 


can see the edge of the Number 10 Building, 


which was one of their production buildings. 


And the new betatron building was attached 


to that by, as I said, what I call, an 


equipment tunnel. 


In order to model the betatrons, 


we used a computer code, MCNP, to model the 


activated steel. The model that we 


eventually started using went back to first 


principles to where it was actually sending 


a beam of 25 MeV electrons at a platinum 


target. 


We have the, essentially, 


blueprint drawings of the platinum target as 


well as the ion compensator, and the ion 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

chamber. And from that, we could develop 


the actual Bremsstrahlung X-ray spectrum 


from the betatrons. 


And from the operators, we knew 


the distances they would normally use for 


the betatron between the head the castings. 


And so that plus, you know, the various 


times that they might have X-ray equipment, 


we could estimate how much activation would 


occur in the steel casting or in the 


uranium. 


For isotopic sources, they had 


two 500mg radium-226 sources up until 1962. 


And they were using the fishing pole 


technique, which was listed in the AEC 


records as well as the operators themselves 


explaining this technique. 


And that technique is pretty much 


just what it sounds. The source is very 


small, it's tied to a string, which is 


attached to a long pole. They used the pole 


to pull it out of a shield and then they 


place it in a small cup, one of the 


operators said, that they'd placed in the 


casting that they wanted to X-ray, that 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

would put the source in the proper position. 


And after the amount of time they 


wanted to expose the film to get the proper 


X-ray, they would pull it back out the same 


way and put it back into the shield 


container. 


They also had a constructed 


radiography room in the Number 6 Building of 


the plant and that is where they did a lot 


of their radiography with these smaller 


sources, but the operators indicated that 


they also took these sources out into the 


plant as needed and would do radiography 


elsewhere besides this radiography room. 


In 1962, the State of Illinois 


asked them to stop using the radium sources. 


And at that point, GSI applied for an AEC 


license, they obtained that license, and 


then they purchased two small cobalt-60 


sources to replace the radium sources. 


The assayed value of those cobalt 


sources was 260 millicuries and 280 


millicuries. The operators often referred 


to them as quarter curie sources. The 


sources were intended to be used in the 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

radiography room that I mentioned in 


Building 6, however, the operators report 


that they were taken outside of there and 


used elsewhere in the plant as needed. 


St. Louis Testing was a 


contractor that they hired to do some 


additional radiography work as well as, I 


believe, instrument calibration and maybe 


some other consulting type of work with 


radiography. 


They brought on a 50-curie 


iridium-192 source as well as a 10-curie 


cobalt-60 source from time-to-time to do 


some additional radiography. The St. Louis 


Testing people reported that they did the 


radiography, the GSI people did not. 


It is assumed that the GSI 


workers showed them where to go, what 


casting to X-ray, et cetera, so as you'll 


see in our estimate later, we assumed that 


GSI employees were working at the boundary 


the whole time the radiography was ongoing. 


GSI also owned two portable X-ray 


machines, I have the models there, and we 


don't know a lot more about them. Many of 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

the operators actually don't remember them. 


One supervisor reported that he remembers 


buying this X-ray machine and he thought 


they did, essentially, a calibration test of 


it when they first got it just to make sure 


it worked and then they never used it again. 


Other operators remember using 


it, but nobody could remember many details, 


and it doesn't appear that it was ever used 


very frequently. And that makes some sense. 


This was a 250 kVp, it wouldn't go through 


very thick metal, and a casting company, if 


they were making it, there wouldn't be very 


many items they could make that it'd be 


useful for. 


As far as data sources, we were 


able to eventually obtain film badge data 


from Landauer. It did not cover the full 


time. It starts November of '63 and it goes 


on through 1972. It is not everybody on 


site. It was radiographers and those 


associated with radiography. 


The badge exchange frequency was 


weekly. The reporting level was 10 


millirem. Anything less than that they just 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

reported as a capital M, meaning minimal, 


but the vast majority of those ratings were 


reported as an M. We did the math and it 


was 99.7 percent of the readings were 


reported below that 10 millirem reporting 


level. 


Prior to 1963, it was reported 


that film badges were worn. There is at 


least one picture of an operator wearing a 


film badge and debate on another picture or 


two. One of the previous operators provided 


a summary of his dosimetry records that were 


prior to 1963, but that was about all the 


information we came up for those. 


So we were, from the operators 


all the way back as far as the operators 


could remember, they did have film badge 


dosimetry, but we could not produce the data 


itself. 


The co-petitioner was actually 


able to obtain over a 1,000 pages of data 


from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 


This data ended up being very useful in 


estimating the doses. It contained, 


primarily, the AEC license as well as 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

license applications, along with the 


renewals of those license. 


There were a few other memos and 


letters going back and forth, but primarily, 


it was the license applications and 


everything that goes with that, such as 


procedures, surveys, et cetera. 


The license was granted in April 


of '62 prior to the purchase of the cobalt60 sources. Some of the information on 


those NRC documents include drawings and 


radiation surveys of that radiography room 


in Number 6 Building that I mentioned. 


These were radiation surveys with the 


sources exposed. 


There was some information, some 


sparse information, about the utilization 


log of the sources, so how often they used 


them per shift, et cetera. And some sparse 


information about what kind of exposures 


operators received prior to the Landauer 


film badge data. 


There was also detailed drawings 


of the betatron building and various several 


drawings with the dimensions recorded on 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

them that helped us model that building 


quite a bit. And after the covered period, 


in 1971, they had done a survey of the new 


betatron with a large cobalt-60 source that 


they had, in the meantime, purchased. 


It was an 80-curie cobalt source. 


They exposed it in the new betatron building 


and they did a survey in a number of 


locations around the building. That is 


after the covered period, but we were able 


to use those surveys with that known source 


in order to model the building and verify 


that that model was appropriate for the real 


world. It actually worked well with those 


radiation surveys. 


Another key data source was 


former workers. There were quite a few 


interviews done, some from the co-petitioner 


prior to us involved, some with us involved. 


SC&A did some. Many of those were a group 


environment of a lot of workers together. 


There was also a number of 


interviews that were shorter interviews 


done, usually over the phone, with SC&A, or 


with us, or even the co-petitioner was on a 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

few of those, to talk to a particular 


individual and ask specific questions about 


sources and other things. 


There was also some of the former 


operators listened in on the Work Group 


meetings and participated in the Work Group 


meetings. They would often pipe in with 


some information we either didn't realize, 


or they wanted to make sure we did realize 


it, or we could even ask them a question or 


two every now and then. 


Some of the information from them 


included the work practices with the sources 


outside the radiography room as well as 


inside the radiography room. We got some 


details on the fishing pole technique. We 


got some details that they did barricade off 


an area when they were outside the 


radiography room, at what point they 


barricaded that. 


We got information about the 


frequency of the use of the betatron or how 


long the shot would normally take. There 


were, you know, obviously, different time 


periods. Some were short, some were long, 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

and essentially, the frequency that that 


would occur. 


We got reports of, as I said, the 


work practices of the sources when you're 


outside the Number 6 Building radiography 


room, but also the violations of those work 


practices. 


And one piece of information we 


got was that the company policy was to leave 


their film badges in the betatron building 


when they were going into the other 


production buildings, and the reports from 


the operators were it was company policy and 


it was followed pretty well. 


Apparently, the idea of that, it 


was a steel plant, there was plenty of hot 


sparks, et cetera, and they were afraid 


those sparks would burn through the film 


badge and render them useless. 


Now, as far as how we intend to 


estimate the dose, for internal dose, we 


went back to TBD-6000 and we used the slug 


production values. Slug production from 


TBD-6000 involves cutting uranium rods as 


well as grinding the ends down, and 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

inherently, it involves handling these 


uranium rods, either by hand or by some 


other means, crane, et cetera. 


We also accounted for the dose 


from fission and activation products in the 


uranium that could occur after you X-rayed 


uranium with this high-powered betatron. 


And we also had to account for internal dose 


from steel dust that could occur if a 


casting was activated from X-raying and then 


somebody went in and started grinding on it. 


And that's a pretty credible 


scenario since that was the purpose of the 


X-rays was to look for defects and when they 


found a defect in a large casting they 


didn't simply throw it away. They went in 


and ground out that defect and then welded 


new metal into that place where they 


grounded it out to try to repair it. 


As far as uranium metal, we chose 


TBD-6000. TBD-6000 contains a number of 


tasks working with uranium metal, including 


forging, rolling, extruding, as well as slug 


production, machining, et cetera. 


All of these tasks with uranium 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

metal inherently include the handling of 


uranium metal, either by hand, or more 


often, by fork truck, or by crane, or some 


other means, and it is a potential of 


getting some airborne from that handling 


just by stirring up the oxides on the 


surface. 


So essentially, all those tasks 


within TBD-6000 include the source term that 


would be at GSI. We chose the lowest 


airborne causing task in TBD-6000 because 


all those would be bounding, but the lowest 


one would be closer to the most plausible. 


As far as the external dose 


estimate, I mentioned earlier, we modeled 


the new betatron building with MCNP and we 


validated that model using the 80-curie 


cobalt-60 source survey. 


Once we got the building model 


validated, we then replaced the cobalt-60 


source with our model of the betatron and 


that allowed us to locate it in various 


locations within the shooting room, and 


point it in various orientations, that way 


we could try to find the worst-case 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

orientations. 


We wanted to use the worst-case 


orientations that were consistent with the 


rest of the data, including film badge data 


and the utilization of the betatron that the 


operators recalled. 


So in each of those orientations, 


we estimated the dose in various locations 


outside the betatron building. One of those 


included the badge rack where they kept 


their badges, and there's actually a couple 


of different locations over time. 


Also, the control room where the 


operators would be while the betatron was 


on, and other locations, including just 


outside that equipment tunnel where it is 


possible for other people to have been. 


And we combined these 


orientations in a way where it would be 


consistent with the utilization time the 


operators gave us would produce the 10 


millirem per week at the badge rack that the 


badges were showing us, but would also 


maximize the dose outside that equipment 


tunnel, which is what we used for an 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

estimate for our layout man. 


Once we had that, we also used 


the direct dose from steel and from uranium 


and added that to our estimates for 


operators and for steel for the layout 


workers. 


I mentioned the typical use of 


the betatrons from the operators and that 


was information we obtained from interviews 


where, as I mentioned earlier, they would do 


some short shots, some long shots, how long 


those typically would be, and how often they 


would do one or the other. 


From that, we come up with an 


estimate of how long the betatron was 


actually turned on. And that, combined with 


the external dose from the activated steel 


or the uranium itself, we could come up with 


a weekly dose estimate if you were only X-


raying uranium or if you were only X-raying 


steel. 


Then we combined those estimates 


based on the amount of uranium work that was 


ongoing and that was based on the purchase 


orders. The purchase orders included, 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

essentially, the maximum number of hours 


that they were working with uranium, and 


from the operators, we knew what the typical 


work week was, so we could make that 


fraction of their time the uranium work. 


Layout man is another job. One 


was operating the betatron, doing these 


various tasks, as far as placing the film, 


removing the film, aiming the betatron, and 


actually making the shot itself. All that 


took some time and it was a busy place. 


Consequently, when they had these 


large castings to X-ray, they would try to 


take the next casting in line, they would 


setup shots by making markings on these 


castings as to where they wanted to place 


the film, where they wanted to point the 


betatron, and they would set this up ahead 


of time outside of the betatron while 


another casting was being X-rayed. 


It is possible that these 


castings were already X-rayed since, I 


mentioned earlier, that was the purpose of 


the X-rays was to look for defects, then 


repair them. Once they did that, they would 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

go back in and make sure that repair was 


adequate. 


So it is possible for somebody to 


be grinding, or a layout man to be setting 


up a shot, on a casting that was already X-


rayed. 


I mentioned earlier, the dose for 


the layout man, we assumed that they were in 


the worst-case location outside the 


betatron, which was at that equipment door 


going into the betatron building. We gave 


them the dose that they would receive, the 


scattered radiation from the betatron being 


on, coming down that tunnel. 


We also included some favorable 


scenarios for the dose they would receive 


from the activated steel. And the favorable 


scenario, as I said, it is possible for them 


to be laying out a casting even after it had 


been X-rayed. 


And the favorable scenario we 


came up with was, essentially, to alternate 


castings, one going in being X-rayed while 


they're working on a freshly X-rayed one, 


and then reversing that, and just kept going 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

back and forth. 


For the radiographers, the 


cobalt-60 sources, we had a 1962 survey 


around the radiography room with the sources 


exposed. So we used that survey and the 


source utilization to estimate a dose to the 


radiographers from cobalt-60 around that. 


That included areas outside the 


walls of that building and we used those 


doses for anybody else, since it's possible 


somebody could have been working right next 


to that building. 


We also, from the work practices 


the operators gave us, determined a dose 


estimate for radiography work that may have 


occurred outside of that Number 6 Building 


room. And that includes the normal 


procedures as well as the normal violations 


of those procedures the operators told us 


about. 


And the intent was to assume all 


the work was either in the radiography room 


or outside the radiography room and simply 


pick the highest one as our dose estimate. 


For the radium-226 sources, at 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

the time of the estimate that we had came up 


with, it was not clear if the Number 6 


Building radiography room existed. 


There was a notation that the 


building was modified in '62 and I think I 


had mentioned, at least in one of the Work 


Groups, that we didn't know if it had been 


modified or built in 1962, so we assumed all 


the radium-226 work occurred outside of that 


Number 6 Building. 


After that time, some operators 


were interviewed and found out that that 


building was always there. NIOSH has not 


yet done an estimate of the radium-226 


radiography occurring inside of that 


building, but SC&A did, and I think everyone 


agrees it can be done and we'll have to make 


sure we agree on the assumptions to be used. 


And again, our intent here would 


be to use whichever was highest; inside the 


shielded room or outside. 


For the St. Louis Testing, we 


talked to St. Louis Testing, they reported 


that they always put a boundary up at the 2 


millirem per hour point. And they 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

controlled that boundary, inside that 


boundary but not necessarily outside that 


boundary, so the assumption we made here was 


somebody could have been working right next 


to that boundary full-time. 


For the portable X-ray machines, 


as I said, we didn't have a lot of 


information. We knew they were 250 kVp and 


the frequencies we got from the operators 


were that they either weren't used or 


weren't used very frequently. Some even 


said they were used in the betatron 


buildings themselves, which would give it a 


great deal of shielding. 


From that, realizing you can't do 


radiography with a portable X-ray machine as 


well as a betatron, or a radium source, or a 


cobalt source, if you have two sources of 


radiation in the area you're not going to 


have a very good X-ray, so you have to limit 


the sources in the area in order to do the 


job. 


So with that in mind, exposure to 


people would be to one type of radiography 


or another. And we made a qualitative 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

argument where the 250 kVp X-ray machines 


would provide a lower dose than these other 


sources of radiation and that is consistent, 


like I said, with the frequencies that were 


reported, which simply said they weren't 


very often, if at all, used. 


 Lastly, the residual 


contamination period, we started with the 


airborne estimate that we used from the slug 


production and we used a standard technique 


of assuming that that would settle out to 


surfaces. 


The time frame that we allowed it 


to settle out was for the time frame that 


the operators were actually manipulating the 


uranium, essentially, all the time except 


for when it was actually being shot. 


The idea behind that was, you 


still need some kind of mode of force to 


stir up these oxides off the surface and 


into the air, and when the uranium is just 


sitting there and being X-rayed with nobody 


around, you don't have that mode of force. 


From that estimate, we came up 


with a surface contamination value and we 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

re-suspended that to come up with an 


airborne value for the residual period. For 


external dose, we used that same surface 


contamination and estimated an external dose 


rate. 


Uranium doesn't give a great 


deal, especially uranium contamination, of 


external radiation, but it will give some. 


So we estimated that and it was 


understandably low, but when it got that 


low, it is possible some other situation 


could pop up and cause us to be 


underestimating the dose. 


So it's a realistic assumption 


that there are mechanisms that could have 


concentrated that contamination and there 


was actually a FUSRAP survey of a vacuum 


cleaner that the surface dose rate on this 


vacuum cleaner showed 90 micro R per hour on 


the surface of the vacuum cleaner. 


It's a fairly low level, but it's 


higher than what we were getting with the 


surface contamination, so we made the 


favorable assumption that somebody was, 


essentially, in contact with that vacuum 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

cleaner all the time that they were working. 


It seems like an implausible, but 


it ended up being a fairly low dose and it 


accounted for various possibilities. 


And that's all I have for my 


presentation. Dr. Ziemer, I don't know if 


you wanted to entertain questions at this 


point or wait till all the presentations --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Paul and I just 


talked, we're going to wait until all the 


presentations are done. It will sort of fit 


together nicely and I think it's easier to 


ask questions rather than to, you know, try 


to -- I'm afraid we'll ask a question and it 


will be in the other presentation or 


something, so, Bob, do you want to give the 


SC&A presentation? 


Then we'll have Paul again and 


then we'll get everybody up there and ask 


questions. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN: I am going to 


give you a brief history of the site 


operations. General Steel Casting was 


actually, that was the original name of the 


company, it was started in about 1929. The 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

purpose was to make steel castings for 


locomotive beds. 


Around 1940, they developed a 


technique for casting tank armor for the 


U.S. Army, but it was a small part of their 


business at that time. Then, they got into 


the business, big time, around the Korean 


War, and at that time, the Army wanted to 


make sure that the castings didn't have 


defects, so as Dave pointed out, they 


furnished two betatrons. 


They were manufactured by Allis-


Chalmers and they installed one of them at 


the Eddystone, Pennsylvania facility in 


November '51, and in January '52, one in the 


Granite City, Illinois facility, which is 


the one that, you know, is under 


consideration here. 


So in each case, the Army Corps 


built the betatron building according to 


specifications furnished by Allis-Chalmers. 


Somewhere around that time, and the 


beginning data isn't clear, you had the 


Mallinckrodt Chemical Works in St. Louis, 


under AEC contract, that were making uranium 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

castings. 


And someone at Mallinckrodt got 


the idea that, here, we have this betatron 


facility right across the river, you cannot 


X-ray uranium with any ordinary radiographic 


methods, but the 25 MeV photons are just 


strong enough to penetrate Mallinckrodt 


casting, about 4 inches of uranium. 


So they started sending over 


uranium to be radiographed and there are 


purchase orders starting in 1958 through 


1966, continuous purchase orders. As an 


example, during the next six months, you are 


allocated $500 and you are allowed to charge 


$16 an hour, so from that, they can 


calculate how many hours of uranium handling 


and radiography was during each time period. 


Prior to '58, there are no 


records, but there is a memo, actually, it's 


just a title page of a set of memos, 


something to the effect of, regarding 


uranium ingots shipped to General Steel 


Castings. The name was later changed to 


General Steel Industries. 


The start date was, by DOL and 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

DOE, assumed to be in 1953. It could have 


been as early as 1952, but there is no 


evidence for it. 


Late-1963, the Eddystone foundry 


shutdown and the betatron was moved to 


Granite City. And GSI, as the company was 


now known, built the building to house that. 


Then finally, in June '66 is the last 


uranium purchase order, and so that's the 


end of the covered period. 


They were still doing their main 


business, which is radiographing steel, 


rather, producing steel and then 


radiographing it to check for defects, but 


they were no longer doing uranium 


radiography, so it's not considered part of 


the covered period. 


Between 1989 and 1993, FUSRAP 


surveys were done of the betatron buildings, 


since they assumed there would be some 


residual uranium contamination, they found 


uranium contamination only in the old 


betatron building; that was the first one 


built. 


And then they, in 1993, around 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

June, there was a cleanup and a verification 


survey, and finally, by December, all the 


wastes were taken offsite, so that would be 


the end of the residual period. 


Here is a aerial photograph, at a 


later time of the operation period, of the 


General Steel Foundry in Granite City. You 


see here, the old betatron building, and as 


Dave said, at a distance from all the other 


occupied buildings. 


And then you have the new 


betatron building, this one was built by 


GSI, right next to the -- this is the Number 


10, which is referred to as the Number 10 


Finishing Building, and here is a closeup, 


which would be an enlargement of that, but 


the old betatron building and the new 


betatron building. 


So the old betatron building was 


in a location where there would be -- you 


know, no significant radiation could reach 


the occupied buildings. So it was not the 


case, here is a -- you know, this is 


actually a Google Earth view, I did this a 


few years ago, showing the roof of the new 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

betatron building and this is a rail tunnel 


connecting it to this Number 10 Finishing 


Building. 


And here's an example, actually, 


it's a unique example, of a steel casting 


being radiographed. This is an axle of a 


power shovel. It's one of the largest 


castings that was made and here is the 


betatron. 


You see here, the electromagnets, 


the two coils above and below, and the 


betatron tube is sandwiched in-between them, 


and the beam comes out this way, so you 


can't see where the beam would exit, you 


know, it would come out this way in this 


direction. 


All right. So the tube is 


sandwiched in-between here and the beam 


comes out in this direction. So here, you 


have a typical crew of, maybe, two or three, 


this one is the operation of the betatron, 


so the betatron is suspended from a 


traveling crane, so it has complete freedom 


of movement. It can traverse the room 


horizontally. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Using geometrical terms, in the X 


and Y directions, and then it can move up 


and down, and it can also be tilted, and it 


can also be rotated around this axis. So 


it's got virtually complete freedom of 


movement in here. 


This particular casting was 


brought in on a trailer because of the size. 


It's rather unusual. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: So where was 


the film? 


DR. ANIGSTEIN: Say again. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: Where was the 


film? 


DR. ANIGSTEIN: The film would 


be, in this case, for instance, it would be 


placed inside. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN: Inside this 


hollow casting, in this instance. 


Obviously, if it's a flat plate, they put it 


simply behind the plate. 


And this way, they have these 


marks here to indicate -- they would have to 


go in different directions. They would have 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

to shoot somewhat from above, somewhat from 


below, and of course, straight. 


So again, Dave went over this. 


I'm just going to briefly review these. 


Sources of exposure include direct 


penetrating radiation. I wrote photons. It 


really should be photons and neutrons, 


because there's some neutron exposure, and 


you would get stray radiation during the 


betatron radiation. 


You would get delayed radiation 


from the activated metal, and you would also 


get neutron and photon radiation from the 


natural uranium even before it was 


radiographed. 


Typically, you have threshold 


binding energies of the nucleus, somewhere 


in the order of 8, 10, 12, and maybe for 


neutrons and protons, so when you have 25 


MeV photons coming out, of course, very few, 


but the electron beam is 25 MeV, so you have 


a photon spectrum with a upper energy cutoff 


of 25, going down. 


Typical energies are in the few 


MeV, but still, you have some high-MeV 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

photons, some high-energy photons, which can 


knock out a proton, or a neutron, more 


frequently a neutron, and create another 


isotope, which, in many cases, would be 


radioactive, sometimes short-lived. 


Then you have your external 


exposure to the sealed sources. This had 


nothing to do with uranium, but because it 


was used at GSI, all radiation sources have 


to be considered in dose assessments. 


So as Dave pointed out, they had 


radium sources, 500 millicurie radium 


sources, until May of 1962, when they 


stopped using them and switched over to 


cobalt-60 sources, which they continued 


using until the end of their operation 


period. 


The cobalt-60 source was somewhat 


smaller and the other sources would be 


external exposure through the skin. They 


would get it from natural uranium. Also, 


from the activation products in the uranium 


and also to the activated steel, which many 


of these short-lived isotope would be beta 


emitters. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

And then finally, there would be 


internal exposure from intakes of uranium 


oxide and from inhalation, potentially, of 


activated metal dust. 


So SC&A performed an independent 


assessment of the external exposure and our 


assessment, we assumed, because NIOSH had 


indicated that they would be using, for each 


period, whatever was the bounding exposure, 


they would apply that to all workers. 


So even though we did a number of 


assessments of many different scenarios, and 


the scenarios somewhat changed over the 


years that we've been studying this, since 


about 2007, as we got more information, in 


the end, what I'm summarizing here is the 


bounding exposure. 


So the bounding scenario from 


between '53 and '62 were the radiographer 


using radium-226. And our best estimate of 


his exposure during '53 and '54 was 15 rem a 


year and during '55 to '62 was 12 rem a 


year. 


And this was based on the AEC 


annual occupational dose limits. And I'll 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

get to why we adopted that in a moment. 


From '63 to '66, the layout man that Dave 


described would be the limiting scenario, 


and according to our analysis, the limiting 


dose, the bounding dose, the highest 


plausible dose that he would get, would be 


9.2 R, and we did this one in roentgens per 


year. 


And we did this with an MCNPX 


simulation, which I'll describe in a moment. 


Now, also, there were, for the other sources 


of exposure, the neutron dose, here, the 


bounding scenario would be the betatron 


operators and it didn't vary very much. It 


goes from 480 millirem down to 460 millirem. 


1966 is cut in half because only 


half of it was the operational period. You 


only have six months here. Then we have the 


beta dose, again, varying. The hands and 


forearm, which are assumed to be in contact 


with both the uranium level and with the 


activated steel, as the case may be. 


For the betatron operator, it 


would primarily would be the uranium. Now, 


going back to the radium radiographer. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

Here's a picture of a radiographer and just 


the radiography source, of course, not the 


one used by GSI, but I got this from the 


ORISE website, but the operators agreed, 


yes, this is sort of like -- I described it 


on the phone and they said, yes, this sounds 


like the one that they had. 


And here is an illustration, very 


old one, around 1940s, of the fishpole 


technique, and not quite the way they did it 


at GSI, but the idea is, here's a long pole, 


and string is attached to the end of it, and 


the radium source is suspended. 


So the worker essentially holds 


it away from his body and then use it to 


transport it. Here's a photograph. This is 


not actually the fishpole technique, but I 


included this one to show that the radium 


would be kept in its shield, with a very 


little narrow cavity, and it would be lifted 


out so that, while it was in the shield, 


unless someone was directly above it, there 


wouldn't be any exposure. 


Here are the bases for our 


assignment of these doses. We have the 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

application for the AEC license for those 


small cobalt-60 sources where they describe 


their previous history and their previous 


experience with the radium sources. 


And they made the statement, and 


also the betatron, and here is the statement 


that's in the application saying that, 


during this period, the exposure limit 


published by AEC at the applicable time, I 


emphasize that, were followed. They never 


exceed an average under 25 percent. 


I take that to mean that they 


might have been reached because if there 


were a small fraction, they would have said 


that. So that's where we get the 15 and 12 


rem for the two respective periods. 


But however, there is further 


information and one worker furnished his 


exposure history. It was prepared at the 


time they started using the cobalt sources, 


but it summarized his exposure over the 


previous 18 quarters, which is four and a 


half years. 


And he had a total of 9.1 rem, so 


over four and a half years, that comes out 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

to 2 rem per year. However, his regular job 


was working in a laboratory doing some other 


testing that did not involve radiation. So 


he was not exposed to radiation. He was not 


wearing a film badge. 


However, he moonlighted on 


weekends as a radiographer. He apparently 


had worked in another facility before coming 


to GSI and had some training, experience, 


and he, of course, didn't have an exact 


record of his work hours, but he told me he 


worked, typically, one to two shifts per 


weekend, 80 to 90 percent of the time. 


So if you take the two limits of 


this, he could have worked as few as 40 and 


as many as 90 shifts a year, and therefore, 


he could have had anywhere between 22 and 50 


millirem average exposure per shift; average 


dose per shift. 


So now we take a full-time worker 


who worked 65 hours a week, and this, by the 


way, is probably an overestimate for this 


period. This was the workers who were there 


in '64, '65, they said there was a very 


intense effort and they were encouraged to 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

put in overtime, and that's how much they 


put in. 


They probably put in less during 


those earlier years, but nevertheless, 


saying that they did have 65 hours a week, 


depending on, you know, how many hours this 


weekend worker worked, it could have been 


from 9 to 20 rem a year. 


And then finally, and this same 


worker testified that he did have a film 


badge that he wore while he was performing 


radiography. So this very nicely spans the 


12 to 15 rem a year based on the AEC limits, 


which GSI claimed that they followed; 


observed. 


And then finally, we did an 


independent analysis using MCNPX and we 


followed that, okay, he's holding this pole 


4 feet away from his body, this is the 


source, then he's there for, he said, 12 to 


15 seconds, so I always took the lower, he 


said 4 to 6 feet, I said 4 feet, he said 12 


to 15 seconds, I assumed 15 seconds, that 


was in the records, and in the shot records, 


was up to 10 times per shift. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

So we got his total exposure over 


the course of a year, and in-between the 


time he was actually setting up the shot, we 


assumed that he was in this little 


radiography room, which had concrete walls. 


Later on, they put in steel 


shielding, but it didn't have it at the 


time, and so they had 16-inch concrete 


walls, and so he would be getting exposed 


while he was waiting, you know, in-between 


exposures, while the film was being exposed, 


while he was sitting there waiting in that 


room. 


And with all of these 


assumptions, again, on a full-time, 65-houra-week basis, the exposure was 10 rem. So 


these numbers are, being approached through 


entirely different ways, remarkably close; 


10 rem, 9 to 20 rem, 12 to 15 rem, so we 


think the 12 to 15 is a very sound number. 


And then furthermore, just 


indicate that they most likely using film 


badges as early as '53, here's a photograph 


out of a GSI magazine that was furnished to 


me by an advocate for the workers. He 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

actually furnished me the magazine so I 


could scan it myself and try to get a better 


picture. 


And here, there was a device on 


his belt that looks very much like a film 


badge. Notice, he's wearing the white T-


shirt, so he most likely didn't have a 


pocket, typically workers put the badges on 


the shirt pocket, but here, if they didn't 


have a pocket, he would put it on his belt. 


And I found this photograph of a 


film badge from that era, which had the same 


general outline. This thick portion on top, 


the white area further down the border. So 


again, I'm not saying it was a Tracerlab 


badge, but it's plausible. 


Next, we get to the layout man, 


and Dave already showed this picture, but 


I'm showing it again to give you more 


information. This is a diagram, again, from 


a later AEC application when they filed an 


application for an 80-curie cobalt source, 


and they said they were going to use it in 


this room; in the betatron shooting room. 


Now, typically, the betatron 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

would be located around here, and the 


casting would be here, and they would shoot 


away from the control room, away from the 


occupied areas. And there were actually 


limit switches which prevented it from being 


turned. 


It could only go, maybe, this far 


and this far in a forward direction, but not 


all the way back. However, there was a way 


to override the limit switches to, they 


call, drooping the head, and they were able 


to radiograph the casting right on the 


casting car. 


And the reason for that was 


simply, speed; save time, save money. So 


they would bring the casting in, they would 


leave it on the casting car, and radiograph 


it, and then so they could take it out 


quickly. 


Now, the procedure they used, the 


best analogy is a dentist filling a cavity. 


First a dentist takes an X-ray of your 


tooth, and identifies where the cavity is, 


then he drills it out, removes all the 


decayed tooth, and then he puts in a 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

filling, exactly what they did with the 


casting. 


Here, the X-ray was taken. When 


they finished taking all the X-rays, they 


used 14x17 regular chest X-ray film, so 


consequently, the castings were usually 


larger, they would have to have a number of 


shots to cover the entire casting. 


They would then remove the 


casting, and if this was something that was 


being done urgently because they wanted to 


ship it out quickly, because they don't get 


paid until they ship it out, so everyone was 


interested in getting paid, the workers 


would, you know, I don't know if they got a 


bonus. 


At any rate, so we're assuming 


the plausible upper bound exposure where the 


casting was removed, then here, it's lifted 


up by a crane and put -- it can't be left on 


the railroad track because that would block 


traffic, so it was put off to the side here. 


And the layout man comes, his job 


actually is, by this time, the film has been 


developed and delivered to him, so the 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

-- 

 

 

layout man looks at the film, he's the 


dentist, he looks at the film, he looks at 


the casting, and he marks the casting where 


the defects are; shows all the areas that 


need to be repaired. 


Then the dentist, with his drill, 


here they are called chippers and grinders, 


which is exactly what they sound like, come 


in and chip away, and remove all the 


defective areas; regions. And then the 


welders come in, as a dentist filling, and 


with their welding metal, and fill-up the 


cavity, and restore it to where it should 


have been. 


Now, while he's doing this layout 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Excuse me, Bob, 


can you speed up because we have other 


presentations and limited time, so let's try 


to wrap up. Can you wrap up, please. Can 


you speed up your presentation? 


DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay. Sorry. 


Sure. Anyway, in the meantime, they're 


shooting another casting here on this car. 


And here is the MCNPX model reproducing that 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

drawing, and here is the betatron, the 


casting, which is just represented by this 


hollow axle, and the position of the layout 


man, and if you do a straight line, he's 


actually within eyesight, you know, within 


view of the betatron. 


He can't really see it, there is 


a very thin metal door here where it doesn't 


show up because it's part of the model. It 


doesn't show because of the scale. So he's 


getting the number of the beam. That's the 


source of his radiation. 


Then, very quickly, we looked at 


the internal exposures, so we get the source 


of internal exposures would be, we wanted to 


see how much the activation really affected 


internal exposure. 


So we calculated the dose from 


natural uranium, that's your 234, 235, 238 


in natural abundances, and that comes out to 


20 millirem per milligram inhaled. Then we 


looked at all the fission and activation 


products in the uranium for the 24 hours 


following betatron exposure, and this gives 


you an additional 10 to the minus 5 millirem 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

per milligram. 


So it's completely ignorable. 


NIOSH actually increased this dose by 1 


percent to be on the safe side. And then 


the activation products from the steel 


castings, assuming the workers, these 


chippers and grinders, were exposed to 


recently irradiated castings, continuously, 


eight hours a day, they get less a 1/10 of a 


millirem a year. 


So again, that's insignificant. 


They do get direct exposure, but not 


inhalation. Inadvertent ingestion is about 


1 percent of inhalation, so that can be 


ignored. And we looked at the annual doses 


from inhalation of natural uranium dust, we 


simply looked at the NIOSH model, and we 


agree, in principle, with the NIOSH model. 


And it was given their assumption 


they calculated those correctly, however, we 


don't agree with all the assumptions. So we 


agree in principle, but not in detail. 


And finally, during the residual 


period, we find that the uranium intakes are 


consistent with the NIOSH model, again, 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

given our reservation about some of the 


parameters. And then with the external, we 


concur with their assessment. Any 


questions? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We're going to 


take questions later. Thank you. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN: We are at the 


end, fine. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Paul. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: I want to remind 


you, at this point of the timeline, sources 


at GSI, this is, in part, important because 


the initial finding of SC&A in the findings 


matrix had to do with the early period, and 


by that, we're talking about the period from 


January 1st, 1953 until March '62, early 


part of the operational period, where we 


know that some of the practices may have 


changed at the point of the AEC license. 


Initially, we had very little 


information about the early period. This 


was before some of the later materials were 


discovered, but in any event, just to remind 


you that, in that initial period, they had 


the first betatron and then the two radium 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

sources were in use. 


Then, beginning in March, we had 


that original AEC license application, and I 


have here in the slide that's already been 


referred to, the license was granted, the 


two cobalt sources were used in replacing 


those radium sources, the second betatron 


was put into operation shortly after that in 


1963, and also, those two portable X-ray 


units were obtained. 


I don't have it on this slide, 


but it's already been mentioned that during 


that later period, also, we had St. Louis 


Testing using a 50-curie iridium source and 


a 10-curie cobalt source, doing some 


radiography on the site as well. 


I will also mention to you, in 


the 80-curie cobalt source, which was 


obtained later beyond the operational 


period, but was used to, in a sense, 


calibrate the thicknesses of the walls for 


the second betatron. 


I should point out to you, and I 


think the petitioner will also mention this, 


that some of the workers reported believed 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

that that 80-curie source was used prior to 


this licensing period. 


We have a hard time understanding 


how that could come about, how they could 


have obtained such a source without license, 


but there are some conflicting worker 


reports on that issue, and also some 


conflicting worker reports on whether there 


was another iridium source, which would also 


have required a license. 


In any event, when the Work Group 


evaluated the different parts of the 


findings matrix, that early period was, in a 


sense, separated out and looked at as a 


separate entity. 


So I just have this timeline here 


to remind you of why that break occurred and 


the fact that the film badging is more 


complete, that is, there are records, 


mainly, for the period of '62, on, with the 


additional exception of that case that Bob 


just mentioned. 


My intent here was to summarize 


the findings and I'm going to change, a 


little bit, how I do this. And I do want to 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

remind you that the issues resolution 


matrix, an updated version of that, was 


distributed to all of the Board Members 


earlier this month, so I don't want to go 


through all of those findings in detail, but 


I do want to highlight a couple of them 


here. 


Particularly, issue 1, the 


initial finding was lack of radiation 


monitoring and data for 1953 to '63. Again, 


remember, this finding preceded much of the 


information that we have on that site now; 


number one. 


Number two, there was concern 


expressed by SC&A in that finding about 


reports of specific incidents, one of which, 


was the possible taking home, or not taking 


home, but taking one of the radium sources, 


a person taking it, and putting it in his 


pocket, and carrying it around. 


But in any event, there was 


concern about the assumptions for 


reconstructing doses in that early period. 


Concern about training, and monitoring, and 


other controls that may or may not have been 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

effect. 


But more recently, both NIOSH and 


SC&A agreed that the doses could be bounded 


in that early period. The Work Group 


actually voted on this particular one. The 


vote was split. It was voted 2 to 1, there 


were three of the four Work Group Members 


present to vote, and the vote was not to 


recommend an SEC status for the early 


period. 


And I say for the early period 


because we were actually thinking at that 


time that perhaps there could be, or there 


might be, an SEC for the early period and 


maybe not one for the later period, so we 


were separating it in our minds at that 


time. 


Most of the other findings, and 


again, I think perhaps in the interest of 


time, I need not go through every one of 


these. They are summarized in your handout, 


or on your drive, but they are in the 


report, what the issues were. 


Issues on the incomplete 


monitoring and that's been addressed through 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

bounding models so that the approach is not 


relying strictly on film badges to bound 


doses, and that's particularly true in the 


early period. 


There was questions on 


documentation, but both after identifying 


the sources and additional information, SC&A 


has accepted NIOSH's approach for 


reconstructing doses. There was a lot of 


concern about film badges in the initial 


findings and also some particular concerns 


about how film badges responded. 


This is more of one of those 


overarching issues, but for this particular 


site, there has been agreement on the use of 


the film badges there with respect to both 


energies and geometries. And the Work Group 


actually had closed that issue earlier. 


There was concern about the 


validation of the earlier models, but later 


models, particularly with the normalizing of 


the film badge data that was done, has led 


to agreement between NIOSH and SC&A, that 


the modeling would be appropriate. 


Concern on the early models 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

focused on the radiographers versus, what 


I'm calling here, non-exposed plant people, 


but the current models assign exposures to 


all workers and include the exposures 


originating from the betatron, the isotropic 


sources, and the other support activity. 


So under the modeling approach, 


all workers, regardless of where they 


worked, would be assigned the appropriate 


dose. 


Dose reconstructions not based on 


best available science. That particular 


finding had to do with an actual 


calculational error in the original 


Evaluation Report and some differences in 


the code models used by NIOSH and SC&A, but 


that has since been resolved. 


Issue 8 on the modeling was a 


similar sort of thing and that issue also 


was resolved. The beta dose, there were two 


issues, one is something called the Putzier 


effect and NIOSH has agreed to include that 


in the main TBD-6000 -- well, actually, in 


the Appendix BB main document, so that would 


be addressed there. It's not an SEC issue. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

And then the issue of skin dose 


has been addressed in the most recent 


models. The lack of consistency in the 


external exposures, that again, focused on a 


particular error in the early models and was 


since resolved and the issue was closed. 


So I've given, here, a summary 


slide of the ten issues that were in the 


original findings matrix. Four of them were 


closed and they're indicated here, and the 


others were deemed not to be SEC issues and 


have been transferred to Appendix BB. 


There was one issue that arose 


because the Work Group had not had an 


opportunity to address the residual period 


until last week, and we actually did this in 


a phone call. 


And in that discussion, an issue 


arose on the appropriateness of using the 


TBD-6000 model that was described earlier by 


Dave Allen, and that is the model of the 


uranium slugs to, in a sense, represent this 


particular facility as far as the 


development of the inhalable materials, and 


it was basically a question of the 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

appropriateness of using that as a, sort of, 


surrogate. 


So the Work Group has recommended 


that the Board not actually take action 


today on the SEC petition, but defer action 


until the next Full Board Meeting so that 


the Work Group can look at the issue of the 


appropriateness of that particular use of 


the TBD-6000 facility, which serves as a 


kind of surrogate, in establishing the 


contamination levels for the handling of the 


uranium in this particular facility. 


And this will apply, actually, 


both to the operational period as well as to 


the residual period, although it arose 


during our discussion of the residual 


period. So we would like to have an 


opportunity to look at that until we make 


our final recommendation. 


But aside from that, as you see, 


we have, essentially, either closed or moved 


the other issues out of the SEC finding 


matrix. So that completes my presentation. 


Dr. Melius, I don't know if you want 


questions for presenters before you hear 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

from the petitioner? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. I think 


now would be a good time and thank you, Dr. 


Ziemer, for organizing a comprehensive 


presentation on what's been a lot of work. 


So, Board Members, do we have questions for 


any of the three presenters, please? Wanda? 


MEMBER MUNN: Just one piece of 


information --


MR. KATZ: Wanda, your mic, I 


think, might be off. 


MEMBER MUNN: Is it on? Closer 


than this? 


MR. KATZ: That's perfect. 


MEMBER MUNN: All right. Do we 


currently have any outstanding claims from 


this site that have not already been 


reconstructed? When the Evaluation Report 


was issued, there were less than 300 claims 


and most of them had been already submitted 


at that time. Do we have outstanding ones 


currently? 


MR. ALLEN: I'm not sure if we 


have any outstanding right now. If there 


are, there's only a few that had come in 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

recently. We have been doing those dose 


reconstructions under Appendix BB and we 


know that is going to be revised once all 


these issues are resolved, and then we will 


perform a PER process on all those claims. 


MEMBER MUNN: I just wanted to 


verify. I thought we had done them all. 


Thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I remind 


the Board, I think Ted sent out, maybe even 


yesterday, okay, I saw it in my email, a 


summary of the claims so far by year, and it 


didn't answer your question, Wanda, I don't 


believe, but it does have a summary of 


Probability of Causation, and other issues 


related to the years there. 


MEMBER MUNN: I have had nonfunctional email for the last 24 hours. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 


MEMBER MUNN: Thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, Brad? 


MEMBER CLAWSON: I guess this is 


more for NIOSH. Out of this, I've seen film 


badge, but do we have any film badge 


information or any kind of real bioassay, or 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

anything, for GSI, or are these all models? 


MR. ALLEN: We have the film 


badge data starting November of '63. It's 


the last three years or so of the covered 


period and a period of time beyond that 


covered period. We have a, I think Bob 


mentioned this, summary of one person's film 


badge data for some time frame before that. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: But was this 


summary, did it have the doses or what did 


we actually have? 


MR. ALLEN: Yes, it had doses, 


Bob, can you correct me if I'm wrong, but I 


think it was a total dose over 18 months? 


No, more than that. Eighteen quarters and a 


total dose over that. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: It's interesting 


to me because, I guess, I have to rely on my 


previous life as a radiographer, because I 


started to look at this and you guys started 


putting time frames on everything, and it 


just really amazed me. It amazed me that 


you could come up with that because I sure 


couldn't have. 


It appeared to me that most of 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

this information, I heard many times the 


term used, we think, you know, you're trying 


to reconstruct this, and I understand what 


it's at, but really, we don't have, in my 


mind, any kind of information. 


To say that cobalt 80-curie 


source is fairly small, I used a 90 to be 


able to do 6-foot concrete walls, so they're 


pretty powerful. And the scatter on those 


are unbelievable. 


And for us to try to -- I'm just 


amazed that -- and I'm not saying that the 


models aren't good, I'm just saying, it's 


amazing to me that we're trying to do this 


with no information, because to try to 


reconstruct something like this, just, to 


me, it's not really feasible. 


MR. ALLEN: Well, just to clarify 


one thing real quick, that 80-curie cobalt 


source came after the covered period. The 


small cobalt sources we were talking about 


were nominally quarter curie, 260 


millicurie, and 280 millicurie assayed 


value. 


And also, this was different than 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

-- I'm not sure what your experience with 


the radiographer would be. A lot of people 


have experience doing radiography for 


maintenance. You know, some piping needs to 


be repaired or a piece of equipment 


replaced, and you do radiography on it, that 


would be very difficult. 


This, on the other hand, was a 


production facility to where they would do 


campaigns of the same type of thing they 


were making over and over so the operators 


could remember quite a bit of what their 


normal routine was on this stuff, such as in 


the Number 6 Building radiography room, they 


said, almost always, it was these, I 


believe, railcar frames, essentially, that 


they were X-raying. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Paul, I think 


you had a response. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: I was just going 


to mention, relative to the revision of --


MR. KATZ: Paul, your mic is off, 


I think. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Relative to the 


Appendix BB, one of the changes that was 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

agreed upon quite early was the work week at 


GSI is actually longer than 40 hours. And I 


believe, and maybe Dave can correct me if 


I'm wrong but, that the claims that had been 


previously done were done with the shorter 


work week. 


So as a minimum, I believe most 


of those claims will certainly have to be 


reworked, if only to extend the time period, 


which will, I suspect, increase the PoCs to 


some extent, we don't know how much, it'll 


depend on the particular case, but that's 


one change that will occur in any event. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Dave 


Kotelchuck. 


MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: I wanted to 


call attention to the material in the SC&A 


report about the FUSRAP investigation of the 


betatron buildings in 1989. We have very 


little hard data, almost none, from before 


1963, after '63, there is good film badge 


data. 


But the fact that the old 


betatron building still had residual 


radiation and the new betatron building did 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

not, suggests to me something perfectly 


reasonable, which is that, people have a 


learning curve and that practices in the old 


betatron building, as they were learning to 


do this procedure and do it as safely as 


they could, were improved over time. 


But that, the early days things 


were, if you will, a bit messy, and 


therefore, there were some problems. And 


the FUSRAP data concerns me that, it seems 


to me to be evidence that that was the case 


and make me quite cautious about the 


assumptions during the period up through 


1963. 


The hard data, as I understand 


it, is from this one gentleman, who Dr. 


Anigstein referred to, and there were some 


issues and questions about the quality of 


his reporting, although, if we take one 


person's word, then we might begin to take 


one person's word, who was a worker and not 


a professional, who said, you know, there 


were problems and film badges were ignored 


because they read high, et cetera. 


And so I'm concerned and I was 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

curious if either Mr. Allen or Dr. Anigstein 


wanted to comment about that. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN: Let's see now, 


several things were brought up, as far as 


the models are concerned, they were all 


verified. You know, we have verification 


that pointed out the models at 10 rem, the 


film badge, depending how, you know, many 


hours the man really worked, was in that, 


you know, 9 to 20 rem. 


The statement made by the GSI 


administration to the AEC saying that the 


workers have always been monitored, or at 


least the operators, and they never exceeded 


these criteria, they would have no reason to 


lie about it because the AEC could have 


said, let me see your records. You know, we 


would like to verify that. 


You know, it's a felony making a 


false statement on an application, and they 


would have no reason to do that because they 


were not even under AEC control during that 


period. They had a voluntary radiation 


control program. It was not under state 


supervision. It was not under federal 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

supervision. 


There were using radium, which 


wasn't regulated by the AEC, and it's still 


not by the NRC, and the state did not get 


into that business until -- they weren't 


even empowered to do it until about 1961. 


And as soon as they did get into the 


business, what they disapproved of was the 


fishpole technique. 


And the fishpole technique, now, 


is explicitly forbidden. I just did a Web 


search and a number of states explicitly 


forbid it, so it's the idea of using it. As 


a matter of fact, as soon as they switched 


to the cobalt-60 sources, they were entirely 


different. 


They were inside the radiographic 


camera, they were inside a heave lead 


shield, and they were operated remotely, you 


know, with a mechanical cable, and were 


cranked in and out. 


The radiographer was behind a 


shield when he was doing this and that same 


worker who had 9 rem over four and a half 


years, suddenly, when they started using the 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

cobalt-60 sources, his doses dropped right 


down to 10 millirem a week, and basically, 


he was assigned that because the badge read 


nothing, so he was given that as the default 


amount. 


So there was a vast improvement 


at that time. Now, as far as the FUSRAP, 


first of all, the old betatron building was 


in use ten years earlier. It was in use 


from, uranium radiography, we assume, 1953, 


in my opinion, it could have been as early 


as 1953, until the new betatron building, 


didn't go into operation, probably, until 


'64. It was built in '63. 


So you had 10 or 12 years of 


additional uranium radiography in the old 


betatron building and only about two and a 


half years of uranium radiography during the 


time the new betatron was in operation. 


And I think there's also good 


reason to believe that the uranium was 


probably handled in the old betatron 


building, because this was a sideline. 


They were getting, you know, 


peanuts; $500 here, even those days, that 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

wasn't very much money to do this. Where 


the big business was selling the castings. 


And the new betatron was built next to that 


Number 10 Finishing Building so they could 


move the castings in and out quickly. 


So there probably wasn't much 


uranium done there. They probably did it in 


the old building and while they were doing 


the steel in the new building. So that 


would be the difference. It wouldn't be, 


you know, like practices improved because 


this was simply dust settling off the 


uranium. It wouldn't have been very much 


difference in their practice. 


And there also may have been more 


cleaning up in the new building. This is a 


little speculative, but I don't think it's a 


serious issue. 


MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Thank 


you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'm going to --


okay, we'll take Wanda's question, then I 


want to give time for the petitioner. So, 


Wanda? 


MEMBER MUNN: It's not a 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

question. It's a statement. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 


MEMBER MUNN: It is disturbing 


that this body has repeatedly heard the kind 


of comment that we just heard that 


professionals not being workers, and why 


professionals aren't workers, since they're 


there too, I don't know, therefore, provide 


information that is suspect. 


One cannot help but take umbrage 


at that. And it is incorrect. It is very, 


very poor technique, and certainly, bad 


science for this body to take that position, 


as they have frequently, and it needs to be 


put on the table and thought about. 


That's not correct. It should 


not be implied and nothing should be 


inferred from it by parties hearing that 


statement. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, we should 


take that up another time. Let's try to 


move on with GSI. And I believe that we 


have the petitioner on the line. 


DR. MCKEEL: Yes, Dr. Melius, 


this is Dan McKeel. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. 


DR. MCKEEL: Can you hear me? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, we can. 


DR. MCKEEL: Okay. I'm sorry. 


I'm having a little mute problem. Can you 


hear me okay now? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, we can. 


DR. MCKEEL: Okay. Well, good 


morning, to the Board. I was allotted just 


ten minutes by Dr. Melius, which is a 


historical ABRWH precedence. I have to 


rebut 51 slides, just presented, in those 


ten minutes, but I did submit to all a 25­

page written remarks yesterday, that 


primarily address Dave Allen's NIOSH 


presentation and how the vote went on 3/15 


and 6/14 in the TBD-6000 Work Group. 


John Mauro of SC&A, on October 


the 12th, 2010, gave a speech on an SEC for 


General Steel Industries for the first ten 


years to the TBD-6k Work Group. He said, 


and I quote, “The first basket is the 


showstopper.” 


If we can't, if the Board, the 


Work Group, and the Board struggles with the 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

idea that we've got ten years of people 


working in radiographic operations, no film 


badge data, and no radiologic protection, no 


occupational records, programs where we 


could track people who might have been 


injured, might have received overexposure, 


if that's the case for the pre-film badge, 


I'm saying right now, the critical path on 


whether this goes down as an SEC or not is 


going to be held to pre-1962 time period, is 


going to be dealt with for the issues that I 


just described. 


What happened between then and 


now, October 2010 and today? NIOSH was 


given a second chance to redo all its dose 


reconstruction methods under the David Allen 


Path Forward for GSI. A major reason was 


that GSI film badge data diverged too much 


from NIOSH and SC&A, MCNP, and Attila, 2008 


modeled external doses for betatron 


operators, and other workers, based on 


layout worker dot doses. 


Over the past 21 months, SC&A and 


NIOSH shared development of MCNPX models for 


one betatron only, despite having no real 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

betatron measure data, either at GSI or in 


the literature, to validate the models. The 


petitioners reject the notion that a CO-60 


source data in 1971 can be used to validate 


external betatron radiation doses 1953 to 


1966. 


Doses from the old betatron were 


not bounded with sufficient accuracy. Old 


and new betatron facilities are not 


equivalent, as Dr. Anigstein shows. As my 


table on Page 23 shows, and I ask you all to 


please view that, the SC&A and NIOSH 2012 


rework MCNPX models do not agree with each 


other better than by twofold. 


A model and validation data 


should agree plus or minus 10 to 20 percent. 


That's the rule in academia. That's the 


gold standard. The 2012 betatron dose is 90 


percent lower than 2008 and the layout 


worker dose increases dramatically between 


2008 and 2012. 


This shows that computer models 


are not reliable and do not agree with each 


or with the GSI radiographer Landauer film 


badge data. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

NIOSH failed to develop models 


for GSI and St. Louis Testing Company at 50­

curie iridium-192 sources, for the 80-curie 


CO-60 source that workers say was at GSI in 


1964, '96, for the two 250 kVp X-ray units, 


for the 1957 to '60 iridium-192 source that 


was at GSI, and they needed to bound these 


external doses with sufficient accuracy for 


all their uses, locations, and job 


categories during the operational period as 


required by OCAS-IG-003, and they could not 


do that. 


On 3/15/12, Dr. Ziemer and Wanda 


Munn voted to uphold the NIOSH 


recommendation to deny SEC 105. This 


morning, Dr. Ziemer says, for the period 


1953 to 1962. I heard the vote as saying 


for the entire period. 


Josie Beach voted to approve an 


SEC for 1953 to 1963, stating evidence used 


by her colleagues was "too skimpy". Here is 


what that too skimpy evidence was. In 1953 


to 1957, a GSI magazine grainy photo of a 


belt object on one radiographer that John 


Ramspott and Dan McKeel now believe is a GSI 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

identification badge, not a film badge. 


The film badge retraction by them 


was sent to all Board Members and to NIOSH, 


and yet, that was not mentioned at all 


today. The GSI 1962 license application 


contained a GSI management letter to the AEC 


that has been referred to by Dr. Anigstein. 


And it reads, I quote, "During 


this period, 1953 to '62, the exposure 


limits published by AEC at the applicable 


time were followed. They were never 


exceeded and averaged under 25 percent." 


My comment is, yet, no such film 


badge data has been located to backup this 


letter. The letter was not corroborated by 


GSI workers who thought much of the GSI AEC 


license information was untrue and self-


serving to the GSI management. 


One GSI worker has a summary film 


badge report, 1957-'61, but again, no actual 


film badge data reports back this up. The 


film badge vendor is not known and the 


picture that Dr. Anigstein shows of a 


possible vendor is simply not corroborated. 


My eighth point that GSI measured 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

data in totality consists of the following, 


that is real data. A, the Nuclear 


Consulting Corporation's 1962 Building 6 


small cobalt-60 source survey, which is part 


of the AEC license application, 1971 80­

curie cobalt-60 source survey of the new 


betatron only, film badge data on a 108 


radiographers, 1964 and 1973, who wore those 


badges part-time. 


Then there, finally, there's a 


uranium dust dose from a small vacuum in the 


old betatron building by ORNL in 1989. 


Ninth point, next to last. TBD-6000 Work 


Group, on 6/14/12, then voted 3 to 1 to 


recommend the Full Board defer an SEC vote 


for GSI on June 20th. 


The Work Group then indicated 


that they would task SC&A to review the use 


of surrogate data at GSI during both the 


operational and residual periods. The yes 


votes that day were Ziemer, Beach, and 


Poston, no vote was Munn. 


The petitioners believe that 


computer models, not validated by real data 


from the source or the site being evaluated, 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

should be viewed as surrogate data. So we 


believe the surrogate data at GSI is far 


more prevalent than just TBD-6000. 


What data is missing in the way 


of real measured data at GSI? This point 


needs to be emphasized and has not been 


mentioned today. 97 percent of the total 


GSI workforce of 3,000-plus people was not 


monitored by film badges at any time, but 


should have been. 


A 100 percent of the workforce 


had no internal monitoring of any kind. 


There was no air or breathing zone, or urine 


uranium bioassay intake data. There were no 


direct dose measurements from any source for 


photons, beta, or neutrons. 


All values are calculations or 


computer simulations of radiation dose, or 


inappropriately used surrogate data. The 


exceptions, such as the limited film badge 


data, are listed above as real GSI data. 


Here's what I conclude. Since 


2005, when OCAS Director Elliot told me that 


GSI was "unique" and "had no monitoring 


data,” the co-petitioner has believed that 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

GSI merited an 83.14 SEC for the full 


operational period to the present. 


I equate sufficient accuracy with 


beyond reasonable doubt of accuracy rather 


than any claimant favorable plausible 


bounding term that truly defies scientific 


definition. I believe that qualitative data 


that NIOSH, SC&A, and two TBD-6000 Board 


Members have recently accepted, 


uncritically, as being valid, such as 


computer model values, letters, summary 


reports, and pictures, should not be allowed 


to substitute for film badge and other 


rigorous quantitative physical measurement 


data that should define the core SEC term 


sufficient accuracy. 


Real monitoring data do not exist 


for 97 percent of the SEC 00105 Class. 


Final comment is that, Appendix BB rev 0 


from June 2007, needs to be revised as soon 


as possible. I want to thank the Board for 


its time today. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, Dr. 


McKeel. I also draw the Board's attention 


to, we have a letter that is on your -- I 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

think you all received from the other copetitioner. It's listed as Advisory Board 


Letter and I don't believe the other copetitioner wants to make any comments, but 


if you'd like to, you may. 


Okay. If not, then just draw 


attention to the letter. Okay. We have 


some minutes left for additional questions 


or comments on this. Dr. Ziemer, do you 


have any --


MEMBER ZIEMER: No, I have no 


additional questions or comments. I think 


if Board Members have questions for Dr. 


McKeel, it would be appropriate as well. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, I was 


including him as everybody at this point. 


Bill Field, are you on the line? 


MEMBER FIELD: Yes, I'm on the 


line. I don't have any questions. I 


appreciate the very comprehensive 


presentations today as well as the 


petitioner's comments. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank 


you, Bill. Okay, Bob, you want to --


DR. ANIGSTEIN: I have one 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

comment on one of Dr. McKeel's statements 


regarding that there was a drastic change in 


the model between 2008 and 2012. That is 


incorrect. In the 2008 report, we 


identified the betatron operator as the 


limiting dose, that was before we had film 


badge data, and the layout man was actually 


a very close second. The two were very 


close. 


I didn't list the annual doses. 


I simply listed the doses per shift, but the 


doses changed somewhat because we got better 


drawings of the betatron building in the AEC 


application. So there were walls that were 


not shown in the FUSRAP report, but the 


difference was not great. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank 


you. Paul, do you want to, sort of, sum up 


the path forward now and timing on that for 


us? 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, the Work 


Group needs to meet again and address the 


issue that I identified, which had to do 


with the appropriateness of the selection of 


the slug facility as a, sort of, surrogate 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

for this facility as far as the uranium 


contamination levels. 


I've asked Ted to look at 


possible dates, if you can go doses too, 


Ted, that'd be great, but possible dates; 


sometime late-July or early-August is what 


I'm hoping for. And we want to come back 


with a definite final recommendation at the 


next full Board meeting. 


And in the meantime, I know that 


there's been a lot of documents that all of 


you have received, some of them are the 


NIOSH documents, some are the SC&A, a number 


of them are from the petitioner or copetitioner, and this will give you a little 


more breathing space to digest those 


documents as well. 


And you've heard, today, sort of, 


the highlights of the various positions and 


concerns, so I think it behooves all the 


Board Members to take the time now, between 


now and the next meeting, and digest this 


material. 


And then determine what you think 


is the best, sort of, final position on 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

this. And this, in my mind, has the 


possibility of being broken into pieces, if 


necessary, or to be done in one fell swoop. 


So I think you'll have to determine that, 


whether there are differing circumstances in 


the various periods that would cause you to 


consider them differently. 


But in any event, I think the 


additional time will help Board Members, 


particularly the new ones who have not had a 


chance to follow this for quite the length 


of time that others have. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And also, can I 


just remind people, if you have questions or 


you can't find a document that deals with a 


particular issue, you know, please contact, 


I think, Dr. Ziemer, or any other people 


involved, SC&A, or NIOSH, rather than wait 


until the next Board Meeting. 


I'd also ask that, if I 


understand right, SC&A is doing one more 


report before the Work Group meeting, is 


that correct or are they just going to 


report to you on that? 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I think 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

what we agreed, during our phone meeting, 


was that we might want to task SC&A at this 


meeting, this would be Board tasking, for 


them to examine the matter of what we're, 


sort of, referring to as the surrogate use 


here, prior to the next Work Group meeting, 


but I think the tasking has yet to be done. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, why don't 


we do it right now while you're still here. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I'd like to 


recommend, then, to the Board that we task 


SC&A to evaluate the appropriateness of the 


use of the TBD-6000 slug facility use as a 


surrogate as it might be appropriate when 


examined in light of our surrogate data 


criteria. 


I'm not sure what I just said, 


but if you think you understood it, I think 


you should vote for it. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, it made 


sense. Do we have a second to that? 


MEMBER ANDERSON: I'll second 


that. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So a second 


from Henry and all in favor say aye. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 (Chorus of ayes.) 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Opposed. And I 


just remind the Board, the Work Groups 


themselves can also do the tasking. So 


that's not necessarily that we come back to 


the Board, so at least for the new Members, 


remember that. 


And what I would ask is that, 


when SC&A completes that report, if they 


could share it with the entire Board, not 


just with the Work Group, because that'll 


help us get ready for the September meeting 


rather than getting something just a few 


days, or a few weeks, before, and remind us 


if there are further questions. Yes, Henry. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: So we're going 


to have this at our next face-to-face 


meeting? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The September 


meeting, yes. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: I think it's 


complex enough. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, and I 


agree, and I think that was what the Work 


Group thought also, and given the timing for 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

the next Work Group meeting. Why don't we 


take a break and we need you back here at 


10:45. 


We have another SEC to discuss 


and we will need to -- the petitioner will 


be on the line, I believe, so we need to try 


to start, fairly promptly, at 10:45. 


 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 


matter went off the record at 10:31 a.m. and 


resumed at 10:49 a.m.) 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Welcome back, 


everybody. I think we got everybody back. 


We'll now have a presentation on the 


Clarksville facility SEC petition. This is 


an 83.14 and Stu's going to do it. We got 


the top gun. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Good morning, 


yes. I'm really not your -- Dr. Lara Hughes 


is our primary investigator on the 


Clarksville facility; primary contact. I'm 


here to assist her, probably not very 


capably, but at least she is on the phone 


and so I think she can help out with 


questions later on if needed. 


Okay. I'm here to present the 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

results of our Evaluation Report for the 


Clarksville Modification Center, often times 


we call it the Clarksville facility, but I 


think it was just March of this year there 


was a federal registry notice from the 


Department of Labor to change their official 


covered name to the Clarksville Modification 


Center. 


It's on the property of Fort 


Campbell in Tennessee. Well, it's on the 


border between Tennessee and Kentucky, I 


guess. The address might be Kentucky, I 


guess, but it's on the border in-between. 


This is an 83.14 petition. We 


concluded that dose reconstruction wasn't 


feasible for Clarksville Modification 


Center. We notified that claimant that dose 


reconstruction wasn't feasible, provided the 


Form A, and the petitioner then returned on 


May 24th, and then we issued an Evaluation 


Report, which we had been working on. 


That's why we could get it done in a week. 


The facility is covered under 


EEOICPA from 1949 to 1967. It's a DOE 


facility as opposed to an AWE. It's part of 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

Fort Campbell, contains a portion of the 


base, it's on the Tennessee/Kentucky border, 


not too far from Nashville. It's 


constructed by the AEC as a weapons storage 


area and it was jointly operated by the AEC. 


It's contractor was Sandia 


Corporation and then there were also 


military personnel who were on the facility 


at times as well. 


The site became operational in 


August 1949, that's when the nuclear 


materials arrived, and some sort of, I think 


it was a strategic bombing wing, or some Air 


Force organization that doesn't mean a lot 


to me, arrived there. 


The nuclear capsule, during the 


earlier weapons, if you'll remember, was the 


fissile component, the nuclear component. 


And there's more to the weapon than that, 


but that is one piece of it. The nuclear 


capsules predated what we call the sealed 


pit design, which was later on. 


There were weapons assembly and 


modification, and disassembly operations 


there. There were a number of structures 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

associated with the nuclear capsules part, 


just the storage, and places where they 


would do maintenance and inspection on 


those. 


And then there were other 


facilities that were constructed for the 


remainder of the weapon storage and for 


maintenance and modification to the other 


pieces of the weapons. 


So recall that, while we consider 


the pit, or the capsule, the nuclear 


component, if you'll remember from our 


discussions at Pantex, there are radioactive 


materials in the other part of the weapon as 


well. So all of these buildings, there was 


potential for exposure. 


The activity and maintenance with 


respect to the nuclear capsules involved 


checking the fissile material, and by that, 


we mean the activity of the fissile 


material. And they did that by introducing 


a neutron source and making sure they were 


getting enough multiplication. 


And they also, during the time of 


when the initiators on these weapons were 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

made from a polonium/beryllium neutron 


source, those had to be replaced with some 


frequency because of the short half-life of 


the polonium. 


AEC transferred the operations to 


the Pantex in 1965, but there would continue 


to be some remaining activities there, 


including storage, and perhaps some 


remaining activities. To be honest, we have 


some inconsistent accounts of when things 


really wrapped up there. 


And so the covered period, at the 


end of '67, we don't have a convincing story 


that things were done earlier than '67, so 


we're treating the entire covered period en 


masse here rather than to say there is a 


convincing reason to stop sooner than that. 


And the workforce ranged from a 


118 to 230 based on the monitoring summary 


reports that were submitted. They wrote 


annual summary reports and they would say 


the number of monitored and unmonitored 


employees, and so that's what those numbers 


come from is those exposure monitoring 


reports. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

This slide shows a picture, I 


think we presented this one because we had a 


document that showed it, of the nuclear 


capsule storage and work area; one of the 


types. There were other types of nuclear 


capsule storage areas that were added later 


on. 


These were, essentially, tunnels, 


I believe, in the side of a hill. There 


were A, B, and C structures in this one long 


tunnel. The A structure is all the way down 


at the end and it's blowup is down there on 


the bottom right. That's where the nuclear 


capsules were stored. 


They were brought out to the C 


structure. That blowup is on the upper left 


corner. That's where the actual 


maintenance, and inspection activities, and 


replacement of the initiators was done. And 


then the B structure was just some 


additional room. It was, essentially a 


backup to the C structure. 


We don't have a similar diagram 


or drawing of the weapon storage facility or 


the gravel gerties that were used for the 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

modification. 


This is all very similar to the 


Pantex facility. Pantex assembled the 


weapons and then did disassembly for 


maintenance and modification just as 


Clarksville facility did. So it's the same 


kind of exposure situation that workers 


would have encountered at Pantex. 


We have our usual sources of 


available information. We captured a fair 


amount of information on Clarksville. We 


have out existing claim files. Because of 


the similarities with Pantex, we considered 


the similarities of Pantex as we go forward; 


as we presented this. 


And we have some worker 


interviews as well as the normal computer-


assisted telephone interviews we do as part 


of dose reconstruction, then we've done some 


data captures. 


Data captures were at our normal, 


we call it, sort of, our due diligence list 


of places. You know, before we make a 


decision we want to make sure we ask, sort 


of, the standard checklist of places to see 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

if we can find information that's relevant 


that would help us reconstruct doses at the 


site. 


And here are the claim 


statistics. As of the date of this slide, 


we had 92 claims from Clarksville, all of 


which would meet the recommended Class years 


because our recommended Class is the entire 


covered period. 


We had done dose reconstructions 


for 70 of those and these were done in 


accordance with Site Profiles which we had 


written, which, those Site Profiles relied, 


to some extent, on data from Pantex as a 


surrogate, and to some extent, on models 


that were considered at Pantex and 


considered to be not sufficiently accurate 


by the Board's action on Pantex. 


So you can see that none of those 


claim files have any internal dosimetry; a 


handful have external dosimetry. We do have 


a pretty complete list of dosimetry summary 


reports that the site prepared showing how 


many people were monitored and how many in 


these various ranges. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

So there is a fair amount of 


external exposure information available, but 


there's very little, or no, internal 


exposure. The claim files don't have any 


internal dosimetry data. I'm not sure that 


we found anything that, you know, we would 


count as internal exposure data. 


There are reports we have read 


that would indicate that there was an air 


sampling program. We haven't seen the air 


sampling results and we don't know if those 


were breathing zone samples or some sort of 


general air samples. We don't know where 


the sampler heads would have been placed. 


Some documents describe a plan 


for tritium bioassay, but we've never seen 


any tritium results or any additional 


description of, you know, a summary of how 


many they took or anything like that. 


Potential exposures here are the 


same that you would encounter at Pantex. We 


include radon in here because there are some 


radon measurements from this facility after 


the covered period had ended and it was 


elevated. I mean, they're in the Evaluation 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

Report. 


Most of them are in the 20 to 40 


picocuries per liter, which is pretty high 


for a site that doesn't have any radium. 


It's just, you know, radon in the tunnels. 


 (Telephonic interference.) 


MR. KATZ: Excuse me. There are 


people on the line who haven’t muted their 


phones. If you would please press *6, if 


you don’t have a mute button to mute your 


phone. Thank you. 


DR. HINNEFELD: We list on here, 


you know, we do have high-enriched uranium 


and plutonium in here. Those are typically 


in the nuclear package and as we talked 


about Pantex, the internal exposure 


potential from the nuclear package is really 


relatively low, but the internal exposure 


from the depleted uranium and the other 


pieces in the other part of the weapon is, 


really, the issue that led to the Class at 


Pantex. 


I don't think cesium is an 


internal potential because cesium was in an 


instrument. It was in what's called a spark 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

tube. One of the instruments that were 


used, either in the weapon or in the 


inspection of the weapon. So cesium is in 


the external although it's listed in the 


internal also. 


External exposures are from those 


same things. Polonium initiator would be a 


potential source also for an external dose; 


and they did have some radiography there as 


well. 


We have almost no bioassay data 


that we've captured. Like I said, none of 


the claims have any internal monitoring 


data. There is a letter that describes one 


individual who was sampled, he gave five 


samples, because of a depleted uranium 


potential exposure, apparently, because the 


memo talks about D-38, which would be 


depleted uranium. 


The person gave two samples on 


one day, two samples on the next day, it was 


like a morning and an afternoon sample, on 


those two days. And then there were two 


days off, which might be a weekend. I 


didn't check to make sure. And then, on the 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

following day, there's one sample on that 


following day. 


None of those samples found 


anything. There was no detectable in there, 


so the conclusion was D-38. We don't know 


what the analytical technique was, although 


I would presume in 1962 it was fluorometric. 


That was pretty well established by that 


time. 


The analysis was done by Oak 


Ridge National Laboratory, so that's the 


only bioassay data we've seen any indication 


of. 


The external monitoring data was 


provided by Sandia and annual reports are 


generally available. We have a pretty 


complete list of the annual summary reports 


on the external dosimetry. They added NTA 


film at some point, but we don't have NTA 


results. 


For instance, the annual reports 


that were prepared say this many people got 


between 0 and 1 rem, but there's no 


distinction between photons and neutrons, so 


we don't really know what kind of a neutron 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

result you have. 


And we have other dosimetry 


reports, some weekly summary data, so we 


have a pretty good body of summary 


information and then some individually more 


specific information. 


We have a little bit of 


information about workplace contamination 


surveys for a limited amount of time. We've 


seen documents that seem to describe tritium 


air monitoring and other, you know, 


contamination surveys, but we've not found 


any tritium monitoring data. 


There's no record of radon 


monitoring during the covered period. There 


were some radon monitoring campaigns. It 


wasn't really a routine program, but radon 


monitoring was in a series campaigns that 


occurred after the covered period. 


Source terms, you know, it's the 


same kind of information that you would have 


at Pantex. The kind of work doesn't lend 


itself to a source term model very well, to 


build a source term model to say we can 


model this intake from building a source 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

term model. 


So our feasibility determination 


is that the available internal monitoring 


records and other types of information are 


not adequate to provide sufficiently 


accurate dose reconstruction for the covered 


period. And these findings are very 


analogous to the decision that was reached 


for the Pantex facility. 


And in fact, the decision on the 


Pantex facility, since these facilities 


essentially did the same work, and to a 


certain extent, their dose reconstruction 


technique relied on some Pantex data that we 


had that was for a surrogate for this work, 


because we had more data on Pantex than we 


had here, even though we didn't have that 


good of data in Pantex, we felt, well, if 


the data is not good enough for Pantex it's 


not good enough for this site. 


So we proceeded forward with the 


83.14. You know, this work was wrapped up. 


It occurs kind of concurrently with Pantex 


as I remember the Pantex covered period. 


We had a hard time believing that 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

they would have had a good uranium 


monitoring program at these facilities and 


then stop doing it when they moved that work 


to Pantex. 


Now, on the external dose, we do 


state in our Evaluation Report, and we state 


in our presentation with some certainty that 


we believe we can do external down the line. 


First of all, we will do medical X-rays in 


accordance with our site-wide documents. 


We don't have any indication that 


their annual physicals would have been 


elsewhere, so we would include the medical 


X-rays. As I said, we do have a pretty good 


set of summary data that we believe we can 


apply a co-worker approach from that for, 


you know, photons predominantly. 


And at the time we wrote this, we 


feel like we can do neutron to photon ratios 


from similar operations. And I think that 


may be an open question. These techniques 


would only be used for partial dose 


reconstructions. In other words, a dose 


reconstruction for someone who doesn't get 


paid through the SEC, doesn't affect the 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

decision on the Class, but it would affect 


how we do partials. 


We still have a little work to 


finalize on exactly what the partial dose 


reconstruction is going to look like. Part 


of it is verifying to ourselves that our 


neutron to photon data is appropriate and we 


do have a good way to do that. 


And then we also have some 


classified documents to review at a couple 


of places that are relevant to the site. We 


got no indication that anything is going to 


be there about uranium intake; it’s about 


other types of things. Those things might 


inform us on our partial dose 


reconstructions as well. 


So we still have a couple of 


those to knock out. I know one of them is 


next week. So we're just going to look at 


that. I know Brad has seen some information 


relative to these sites on some of the 


captures he's been on. He might be able to 


add information to this later on if we want. 


Our summary of our feasibility 


findings is, for internal, we don't feel 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

like there's sufficient information to do a 


sufficiently accurate internal of any 


fashion. You know, we don't feel like 


there's any component internal that we can 


say, we can reconstruct that component of 


dose for all the claims. 


If in fact we find some internal 


data, we will include it in the dose 


reconstruction for that particular claim if 


it's a non-SEC cancer if we, in fact, get 


some internal data. 


For dose reconstruction, we 


believe it's feasible down the way. As I 


said, we still want to justify the neutron 


decision to ourselves, whether we can really 


do that. That's just a matter of, is there 


going to be a neutron component in this 


partial dose reconstruction or not? That's 


the only thing that that decision will 


affect. 


So for health endangerment, we 


have concluded from our evaluation that some 


workers in the Class may have accumulated 


chronic radiation exposures through intakes 


of radionuclides and direct exposure to 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

radioactive materials. 


And so we believe that their 


health may have been endangered if they 


worked there for 250 days or longer, or in 


aggregate with other Classes. We did not 


find evidence of a single incident that 


would result in a large dose and would 


therefore, allow us to specify a Class at 


that facility. So we believe it's 250 days 


for health endangerment. 


So our proposed Class is all 


employees of the Department of Energy, its 


predecessor agencies, and DOE contractors 


and subcontractors, so on and so forth, for 


the entire covered period, August 1st, 1949 


to December 31st, 1967, for the 250 days. 


I believe that's the end. Yes. 


One final slide is that we do not believe 


it's feasible and, yes, we do believe health 


is was endangered. 


I will try to answer questions 


you may have, either about the presentation 


or the Evaluation Report. Dr. Hughes is on 


the phone, I believe, so she might be 


helpful if the questions are very hard. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's always good to have smart people 


working for you when you're not very smart. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, you did 


an excellent job. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Brad. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: Stu, I just was 


looking at your proposed Class and it has 


August 1st, '49 and then in the next slide 


it has January 1st, '49. 


MR. HINNEFELD: It's August. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: It's August? 


Okay. 


MR. HINNEFELD: It's whatever is 


written in the Evaluation Report, which I'm 


pretty sure is August. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. I just 


wanted to make sure on that --


MR. HINNEFELD: Sorry. It's a 


typo on the slide. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: -- because we 


have two different ones there. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Good pick up, 


Brad. Gen. 


MEMBER ROESSLER: I tried to find 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

this on the website, Stu, and I couldn't 


quickly, but you talked about Pantex. Is 


there an SEC for Pantex or is that --


MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. The Board 


recommended adding an SEC for Pantex after 


the telephone call, right? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


MR. HINNEFELD: The last 


telephone call. 


MEMBER ROESSLER: I don't think 


it's on the website yet. Maybe that --


MR. HINNEFELD: Well, it may not 


be effective yet. Remember, from the 


Board's vote, there's almost three months, 


sometimes, before the effective date. 


MEMBER ROESSLER: Okay. 


MR. HINNEFELD: And so I believe 


it's not yet effective, but it's on the way. 


MEMBER ROESSLER: Okay. Thanks. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Isn't that right, 


Jim, or is it effective? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think it 


should be in place. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: It's already, 


Stu --


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MR. HINNEFELD: Is it effective? 


MEMBER CLAWSON: -- it's in 


place, yes. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think it's 


more the website's --


MR. HINNEFELD: Maybe the 


website's behind. 


 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- 


reconstruction is --


MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I would 


blame Chris Ellison, but I'm sure it's my 


SEC team leader's fault that he didn't get 


the word to her. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. We'll 


remind him of that when --


MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- we get our 


chance later. Okay. Any other questions? 


Paul, I'm sorry. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Stu, could you 


remind us, on the claims tracking, you have 


completed 70 of 90 dose reconstructions. 


Now, what did you do on those as far as 


internal? 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MR. HINNEFELD: There was a model 


approach, sort of, an attempt to model the 


amount of depleted uranium that might be 


there and that was an approach, I think, 


that was not convincing in the Pantex 


discussion. There was also a --


MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, this was 


pre-Pantex when these were done and then --


MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, these Site 


Profiles were written back when we had a 


Site Profile for Pantex and felt that we 


could do dose reconstructions there. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Got you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Wanda. 


MEMBER MUNN: I'm ready to 


propose a Class if you're ready for the 


motion. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I see nobody 


else --


MR. HINNEFELD: Is the petitioner 


on? Ted, is the petitioner participating in 


this one? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, we need to 


do the petitioner first and I also need to 


ask Bill Field if he has any questions. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MEMBER FIELD: No questions for 


me. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. And I 


believe the petitioner is present. I'm not 


sure that he or she wishes to speak, and 


you're not required to, but if you'd like to 


say anything at this point, you're welcome 


to. Okay. I'll assume the petitioner 


doesn't want to make comments and then we 


can move on. 


We have a motion and a second to 


that, and barring further discussion, Ted, 


do you want to go ahead and call the roll? 


MR. KATZ: Sure. 


MEMBER MUNN: Yes. I'll be glad 


to move that the Board accept the proposed 


Class. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Oh, I was 


taking your earlier. I thought you had 


made the motion already. 


MEMBER MUNN: Oh, I didn't 


specify that it was for Clarksville 


Modification Center as identified on Slide 


16 of Mr. Hinnefeld's presentation. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MEMBER CLAWSON: I second it. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And we have a 


specific second. 


MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I'll second 


it. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, we had 


Brad. 


MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Brad, well, 


shame on you, Brad. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Brad, yes. Get 


with it, Phil. Come on. 


MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes, I know. 


I haven't had my chili today yet. 


MR. KATZ: Very good. Anderson. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Beach. 


MEMBER BEACH: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Clawson. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Field. 


MEMBER FIELD: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Gibson, are you on the 


line? Absent. And Griffon is absent. 


Kotelchuck. 


MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MR. KATZ: Lemen, are you on the 


line? Dr. Lemen. Absent. Lockey. 


MEMBER LOCKEY: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Melius. 


CHAIR MELIUS: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Munn. 


MEMBER MUNN: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Poston. 


MEMBER POSTON: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Richardson is absent. 


Roessler. 


MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Schofield. 


MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Valerio. 


MEMBER VALERIO: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: And Ziemer. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: It's unanimous, so the 


motion passes and I'll collect the absent 


votes after this meeting. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And we're 


running a little ahead of schedule. LaVon, 


how long is your presentation? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: I can be done in 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the amount of time that we have left. Let's 


put it that way. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So that's 30 


seconds for presentation and two and a half 


hours of questions. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: All right. I do 


want to note that the Pantex information is 


on our website, by the way. 


MEMBER ROESSLER: But it's not 


under the SEC list. It's in one place, but 


not another. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. I'll look 


at that. 


MEMBER ROESSLER: Okay. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: That might be. 


Okay. I'm going to discuss our status of 


our SEC petitions. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Excuse me a 


second, LaVon. For those looking, it's 


under the non-quilifying (sic). 


MR. RUTHERFORD: And I'm also 


going to talk about non, what did you call 


that, quilifying (sic)? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, that's 


what was on our --


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, I'll talk 


about non-qualifying petitions as well. 


Okay. We provide this update to the Board 


routinely to give them an update on current 


SEC petitions, and the status of those 


petitions, and also, it gives the Board an 


idea to prepare for upcoming Work Group 


Meetings and Board Meetings. 


A little summary, we are up to 


204 petitions, as Stu pointed out yesterday. 


We have one in the qualification process. 


We have a 125 that have qualified for 


evaluation. A good majority of those are 


complete: 120. And then we had 79 petitions 


not qualify. 


You'll notice a little later that 


that's different in another slide and that's 


because the five petitions that were 


received prior to the Rule and one site 


being de-listed. 


Petitions being presented at this 


meeting, Winchester Engineering, Hanford, 


Clarksville, that you just heard, Medina, 


and Titanium Alloys, who you'll hear later, 


as well as Medina, you'll hear tomorrow. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

Status of current petitions in 


the evaluation process, Oak Ridge National 


Lab, that one we had hoped to have for this 


meeting, however, some data came up late in 


the game that we felt we really needed to 


review that data prior to issuing our final 


recommendation to the Board, so that will be 


presented in August. It's a Class of all 


employees from January 1, 1943 through 


December 31st, 1952. 


Rocky Flats plant, again, this is 


all employees who worked at Rocky Flats 


plant from January 1, '72 through December 


31 of 1989. We do expect to complete that 


evaluation in August and present that report 


at the September meeting. 


Nuclear Metals, Inc., which is 


located in Concord, Massachusetts. The 


Class being evaluated is all employees who 


worked at NMI from January 1, 1958 through 


December 31st of 1983. We do expect to 


complete this in early September. It's 


going to be close whether this will be 


presented at the September meeting or not. 


Hopefully we can get this one done in time. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

CHAIRMAN MELIUS: They're all 


close, LaVon. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, I know. 


Actually Ventron Corporation -- good segue 


for me -- Ventron Corporation is actually in 


final signature right now, so it should be 


issued within the next week. Let's see, 


it's a Beverly, Massachusetts location. 


It's all employees who worked at Ventron 


Corporation from January 1, 1942 through 


December 31st of 1948. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Holding our 


breath. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. Joslyn 


Manufacturing and Supply Company is a Class 


being evaluated. It's located in Fort 


Wayne, Indiana, which is close, and 


actually, Sam Glover is going to go to that 


facility here and do some interviews. 


The Class that's being evaluated 


is all employees who worked at Joslyn 


Manufacturing and Supply Company from 


January 1, 1944 through December 31st of 


1952. We expect to complete this one in 


September as well. And again, this one will 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

be -- actually, I doubt that this one will 


make the September meeting, but we'll see. 


Petition qualification, again, I 


wanted to talk a little bit about this. 


This was brought up at the last meeting, why 


petitions don't qualify. It says 73, and 


that does not include the six petitions that 


I mentioned earlier, that five were received 


prior to the Rule and one that the site was 


de-listed. 


And that 202 should be 204. This 


slide wasn't updated with the earlier slide. 


As you can see, the major reason is petition 


basis not being met; 48 of the 73 were 


because of that. Okay. You can also see, 


sometimes that that petitioner will petition 


for multiple sites and you can only petition 


for one site. 


And also, petitioner withdrew 


petition, we had six of those, and 


petitioning for a site that's already 


covered by an SEC, we had five of those. 


Those are typically, individuals that --


okay, I'm out of water. Those are 


typically, individuals with non-presumptive 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

-- 

 

 

 

 

cancers. 


Well, after he threw me under the 


bus about the SEC thing, but particularly 


for sites that are already covered by an SEC 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Stu, I'll get 


the next. Only the best for you. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Again, we had 


individuals that petitioned for a site, not 


recognizing that the non-presumptives aren't 


covered and they have a non-presumptive 


cancer. So as you can see, the petition 


basis not being met is the major reason why 


a petition would not qualify. 


And what is required by a 


petition basis, it's a description of the 


basis for believing records and information 


available are inadequate to estimate 


radiation doses based on one of the 


following, and that's lack of monitoring, 


destruction, falsification, loss of records, 


expert report, or scientific or technical 


report. 


Typically, what a good basis we 


see, a lot of times, is lack of monitoring 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

for sites. Like, a good one, you know, 


Joslyn, that we just qualified and we're in 


the evaluation phase, no thorium monitoring. 


That was a good one there. 


 Destruction, falsification, loss 


of records, NUMEC, we had the falsification 


of the CEP data. Expert report, that could 


be, like, a report from SC&A that actually 


identifies an issue of monitoring data, and 


a scientific or a technical report, and I'll 


get into the specific definition of those. 


The federal regulation criteria, 


lack of monitoring, radiation exposures and 


doses to members of the proposed Class were 


not monitored either through personal or 


area monitoring. So what we do is, we get a 


petition in, that's their basis, we look at, 


okay, do we have bioassay data for the 


individuals for this defined period? 


If we don't have bioassay data, 


do we have area monitoring data, such as 


general area breathing zone samples? And 


this can get somewhat subjective because you 


have to look at the amount of data you have, 


does it cover the entire time period that, 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

you know, they're petitioning for? 


And you ultimately make a 


decision that you may actually qualify a 


petition for a shorter period because you've 


identified that, yes, we do have a lack of 


monitoring for this defined period, and that 


gets the petition through the qualification 


and into the evaluation phase. 


 Destruction, falsification and 


loss of records, again, radiation monitoring 


records for members of the Class have been 


lost, falsified or destroyed. And we have 


had a couple of those. Typically, it would 


be lost. We do have the falsified with CEP 


data, as I mentioned earlier. 


Expert report, it's a report from 


a health physicist or other individual with 


expertise in dose reconstruction documenting 


the limitations of existing DOE or AWE 


records on radiation exposures at the 


facility as relevant to the petition. 


This report should specify the 


basis for believing these documents, 


document limitations that might prevent the 


completion of dose reconstructions for 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

members of the Class. As I mentioned, we 


have used SC&A reports, actually, we had 


petitioners that have petitioned and have 


cited SC&A reports that we've ultimately 


qualified a petition because of that. 


Scientific or a technical report, 


again, it's a scientific or technical report 


published or issued by a government agency, 


and I'll go through that. And we have had 


situations, Tiger Team reports, that have 


been cited in petitions that have been used 


for qualification, if it cites a limitation 


in the dosimetry information or a failure in 


some type of radiologic controls that we 


would ultimately be using to support dose 


reconstruction. 


Again, this is just 


qualification. It gets you in the door. 


Once we get you qualified, then we do the 


full evaluation. Okay. And that's it. I 


want to answer any questions on the 


qualification. I think a lot of you got 


somewhat of a training session on this early 


on, but we haven't been updated since then. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Can you just 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

briefly describe the process? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So it comes 


into you and --


MR. RUTHERFORD: It comes into 


us. What we do initially is we look at the 


petition up front, we put together a consult 


call with the petitioner to kind of go over 


the specifics of the petition to try to, you 


know, we'll identify deficiencies that we've 


noted in the petition. 


A deficiency, if it's a 


deficiency like the site's wrong or the site 


name is wrong, all the little administrative 


stuff, we'll fix that. We will get that 


fixed one way or another. But we go through 


and we identify deficiencies in this thing 


and then we get the petitioner on the phone, 


we go through these deficiencies, and they 


get a time period to resolve them. It's 30 


days. 


And that 30 days is not set. We 


accept extensions all the time if they need 


additional time to do something. And then 


once they provide that additional 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

information, they come back and if, you 


know, they've completed everything, then we 


make the determination if they've met the 


basis for qualification at that time. 


The problem you get into, just a 


note, is that all of this is on the clock; 


the 180-day clock. And what we try to do 


now, and we've done, this is a lesson 


learned over the years of doing this, is we 


look at this thing initially, right up 


front, as quickly as we can and say, do we 


think this thing is going to qualify. 


And if we do, then we try to pull 


our team together and start working as 


quickly as we can because, if you look at 


the Rocky Flats one, for example, we were in 


qualification on this last Rock Flats one 


for about three months, and it was because 


of different things weren't provided, and 


ultimately, it was only because of some 


additional work that was done internally 


that we were able to find it ourselves and 


get it moving through. 


So it does take some time, but we 


have done some lessons learned to try to 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

help the process along. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I mean, I think 


it's very burdensome on the petitioners to 


come up with information. I mean, how do 


you prove that records are lost, because 


they're lost? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Exactly. You're 


right. And, you know, the first two require 


an affidavit and we look at that, you know ­

- well, for example, if they say the records 


are lost, we'll look and see, do we have 


records. Do we have personal or area 


monitoring on individuals? And if we don't, 


then we say, okay, you have to qualify it to 


move it forward. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: So you're right. 


It's tough. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I think 


also, and I remember when we discussed these 


initial regulations for this process, I 


think we thought that having a health 


physics expert, or something, might be more 


available, but it's, you know, I think, 


frankly, pretty hard. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do you have any sort of 


instruction sheet or something for the 


petitioners that would help them to provide 


some of that --


MR. RUTHERFORD: There is --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: What kinds of 


information you're looking for beyond, I 


mean, the regulation is a little bit sparse. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, the 


petition forms tell you what you need to 


fill out, all right? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: But then we also 


have, on our website, a fax sheet that talks 


about things on -- or qualification is 


included in that. And we also, Josh Kinman, 


gets a ton of calls as well as Denise Brock, 


you know, to answer any questions they have 


in the qualification phase. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. I mean, 


something like, what is in a good petition 


and what doesn't help a petition might be 


helpful to have in writing, not that Josh or 


Denise can't help, but I think for people to 


get this stuff prepared, because I think 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

they feel the deadlines, they feel the 


pressure, you may say, yes, we extend beyond 


30 days, but, you know, it makes them 


anxious and, you know, especially when you 


ask them to get more records, you know, 30 


days is not adequate. 


And I know you extend, but it's 


still hard. Wanda, you had a question. 


MEMBER MUNN: Just a request. 


The next time you do this, could you please 


break out for us the difference in the SECs, 


that is, how many 84.13s do we have, how 


many 84.14s? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. 


MEMBER MUNN: It is instructive 


for some of us to be able to see that 


differentiation. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. I can 


actually add that to my summary for now. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: One other 


question I had was just, I guess, related to 


that, are there instances where you've 


turned down petitions and later, as you've 


gone through, the sites have become 83.14s? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: You know, I 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

don't know off my head, but I would say yes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: And, you know, 


this is the nature of the beast. Early on 


in this process we would get petitions in 


and, you know, we hadn't done the data 


captures, and all the information that we've 


pulled together to date. 


For example, Joslyn is a really 


good one. Even though it's an 83.13, it's 


one that, early on, we felt like, you know, 


we had exposures covered. 


However, then we found a document 


that indicated thorium work occurred at 


Joslyn. And so, actually, a petitioner 


contacted Denise and I said, great, have 


them petition thorium monitoring. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Just some 


background for the newer Members, I think we 


talked a little bit about this yesterday, 


but we actually had a Work Group that looked 


at this process, we were thinking five or 


six years ago, Jim Lockey chaired it, and it 


sort of coincided, I think, with LaVon, sort 


of, taking over the process, I think. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MR. RUTHERFORD: Actually, I took 


over from the beginning of the SEC process. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Well, 


then it coincided with some changes in the 


process. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, actually, 


we had shifted from --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I wasn't going 


to blame you for the previous mistakes, but 


you’re honest, take credit or blame. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, okay. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I think, 


since that time, with those changes, I think 


it's become a process. I think the hard 


part is, where do you draw the line between 


petition qualification and evaluation. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: I agree. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. And I 


don't know. It's not an easy answer, but 


it's that, but I think it's clearer now in 


terms of the process and so forth. And I 


think, Jim, you'd agree with --


MEMBER LOCKEY: No, I would agree 


with that. Plus, there's a lot of -- as new 


information is found on an ongoing process, 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

you go back and re-evaluate it. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Right. 


MEMBER LOCKEY: There's a lot of 


ways to go back into the system and reevaluate. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Any 


further questions? Yes, I'm sorry. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: So how many 


have been granted or how many have the Board 


acted on? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Now, actually, 


the Board Classes? 


MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: That was 


mentioned earlier. Fourteen, I believe, 


Classes have been denied by the Board. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: That's after 


we've completed qualification, went through 


evaluation, and the Board has ultimately 


made the recommendation to the Secretary. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: I was just 


wondering, you were saying you evaluated a 


120, how many of those would be considered 


closed either that we denied it or we 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

approved it? So how many are actually --


you say there's 12 here at the Board to --


MR. RUTHERFORD: Right. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: So do you have 


80-something that are under evaluation? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: No, actually, 


the number of petitions under evaluation are 


five right now, okay, that are actually in 


our evaluation phase. And then the Board 


has 12 that we've competed our evaluation 


and submitted to the Board. Actually, that 


12 includes the five that are with the Board 


for this meeting. 


So that's a smaller number, 


really. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. I think 


though that --


MR. RUTHERFORD: I'm missing the 


question, I guess. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, no, well, 


remember, we evaluate and we'll do partial 


SECs, so it's about -- yes. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: I was just 


wondering what's the backlog that may be 


coming to the Board versus what's already --


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MR. RUTHERFORD: Right. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: -- either been 


through or --


MR. RUTHERFORD: There's five. 


There's five evaluations in progress. We 


have one that's in the qualification phase. 


So there's a total of, possibly, six total 


that are on our slate right now. And that 


doesn't count the 83.14s that may come up. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think it's a 


good time to break for lunch. Okay. So we 


will break for lunch and reconvene at 1:30. 


 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 


matter went off the record at 11:36 a.m. and 


resumed at 1:33 p.m.) 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. If we 


get seated, we'll get started. Well, Ted 


has to do the --


MR. KATZ: So let me just check 


on the phone lines for which Board Members 


we have. 


MEMBER FIELD: Bill Field. 


MR. KATZ: Good to hear you, 


Bill. Any other Board Members on the line? 


Very good. And let me remind everyone on 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

the line to please mute your phone. Press 


*6 if you don't have a mute button to mute 


your phone. That'd be appreciated. Thank 


you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I have one 


announcement before we start on Mound. One 


of the issues we're going to be discussing 


tomorrow morning will be some issues related 


to the Linde site and those issues have to 


do with some tunnels that were at that 


industrial site. 


And in order to help everybody 


understand, the Work Group's already gone 


through this, and we'll have some, I think, 


slides, maybe, showing the tunnels, but the 


full-sized, you know, drawings are on the 


back table. Jim Neton just put them out. 


And so I think some of these issues may be a 


little easier to understand if you see the 


blowup rather than seeing the diagram on the 


screen. 


So if the Board Members could, 


when they have an opportunity, you know, 


later today, or before the Linde 


presentation tomorrow, go back and take a 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

look and look at these drawings and so 


forth. 


We have a lot of experts who've 


looked at these drawings quite a lot who 


might be able to assist you and willing to 


assist you. Gen, Josie, who else was --


MEMBER ROESSLER: Lockey. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Lockey. 


MEMBER ROESSLER: And, of course, 


Jim Neton. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Jim Neton, yes. 


MEMBER ROESSLER: And I only have 


one slide. It's a summary diagram, so it 


really tells what our conclusion is --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 


MEMBER ROESSLER: -- to see how 


we came to that conclusion. You really have 


to look at the maps that Jim brought. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. So look 


back and take a guide with you if that'll 


help. They're inexpensive, good service. 


You got a choice, you know? 


MEMBER ROESSLER: You can take 


them home with you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Our first 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

session this afternoon we're going to be 


talking about the Mound plant SEC petition, 


and this is an update, and, I guess, Josie, 


you're starting. I'm not quite sure who's 


presenting and how this is going, but go 


ahead. 


MEMBER BEACH: I'm going to 


present the whole thing, unless there's some 


technical issues that, I know that Joe's 


here and so is Jim. So I just want to 


remind you that, in July of 2009 is when I 


last presented Mound to the full Board. 


That was our Cincinnati meeting. 


See if I can turn my pages and 


get this changed at the same time. So this 


slide is just an overview of what we've done 


with Mound. A couple of the highlights, 


you'll notice that, in December 2007 when 


the Evaluation Report was issued, NIOSH 


estimated that they couldn't estimate 


internal for radium, actinium and thorium. 


And we did vote in an SEC for 


October 1st, 1949 through February 28th, 


1959, and I just key on that because I just 


want to point out, we do have quite a bit of 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

covered period for Mound already. 


The second one is, we did add the 


SEC Class for radon. We've held over ten 


Work Group Meetings in the last five years 


with various onsite visits, technical 


sessions, worker interviews, the normal data 


capture. 


The next two slides is just an 


update. We had 21 issues when we started. 


So today I'm going to tell you that we've 


closed all them but one. So these two 


slides just give you an overview of what 


those were. 


The open item is tritium and 


stable metal tritides. Okay. And what I'm 


going to do is go ahead and just give you a 


brief review description of each issue, the 


status of that issue, and then what the Work 


Group actions were. 


You know, and I was talking last 


night at dinner, we've had five years of 


White Papers, five years of data and to 


reduce it down to one slide, it gives you 


the gist, but if there's more questions you 


have, we do have numerous White Papers on 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

every single issue that we've closed. 


The other thing I want to point 


out is, all these issues have been closed 


with, it was unanimous within the Work 


Group, so there was no contention on any of 


these closed items. 


Okay. So the first one, NIOSH 


concludes that, where radionuclide-specific 


bioassay data is lacking, either available 


gross alpha data can be applied, an 


alternate dose reconstruction approach can 


be used or an exposure potential required 


routine monitoring is not evident. 


We did have two questions. The 


first one, can the lack of bioassay data for 


radionuclides in use at Mound be 


rationalized on the basis that either the 


radionuclide form or handling preclude 


exposure potential, thereby making 


monitoring unnecessary or that operations 


were limited during these periods to 


intermittent campaigns for which event-


driven bioassay coverage would have been 


sufficient. 


The second question, is the use 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

of gross alpha monitoring, a suitable 


surrogate for radionuclide-specific bioassay 


at Mound where isotopic-specific data is not 


available. 


So NIOSH and SC&A both turned to 


what was called the King and Meyer report 


for historic background information on 


exposure potential and available bioassay 


techniques. SC&A provided an analysis of 


data adequacy and completeness which 


highlighted the gaps in the assay data and 


for identified Mound source terms over 


extended periods. 


The Work Group came to an impasse 


over being able to prove routine exposures 


took place and accepted NIOSH's position in 


the Evaluation Report regarding dose 


reconstructability. 


All items are now closed with 


data adequacy and completeness except for 


there's a front-end period where there's a 


gap between the Monsanto SEC and the Mound 


SEC, and those dates are from February 1st, 


1949 through September 30th, 1949. 


An extension of the existing SEC 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

remains to address polonium. We also have 


various Site Profile issues within this data 


adequacy and completeness. And NIOSH has 


told us they would come before the Board 


with that, that gap year, to be brought 


together. 


Okay. So this next slide talks 


about plutonium-240, -241, and -242, whether 


available Pu-239 monitoring data can be 


substituted for plutonium-240 and -241 when 


data is lacking. SC&A questioned whether 


availability of the data and whether dose 


reconstruction approach would be bounding 


given the operational history. 


NIOSH did demonstrate that 


plutonium-239-based ratios could be used to 


estimate the intakes for other isotopes. 


This was closed way back in July of 2008. 


Okay. The next item talks about 


radon in Buildings R and SW. The Evaluation 


Report concluded that available radon 


monitoring air concentration data collected 


from 1979 to 2000 could be used to derive 


indoor radon levels. 


The Work Group questioned whether 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

elevated radon levels were limited to just 


SW Building and whether very limited 


measurements prior to 1980 provided valid 


basis for dose reconstruction. 


A confounding issue is that 


radon-222 was not the sole source of radon 


exposure. We also had 220 and 219 in 


appreciable quantities. So NIOSH found that 


they could not reconstruct the dose for 


various radon isotopes with sufficient 


accuracy and recommended that an SEC status 


under an 83.14 be approved in July of 2010. 


Those dates are March 1st, 1959 


through March 5th, 1980. This did require 


the claimants to have at least one tritium 


bioassay sample and to have worked in R and 


SW between -- well, excuse me, not R and SW, 


worked at Mound during those dates in March 


from '59 to '80. 


They did find, and, Jim, shake 


your head, is it NIOSH that found the 


missing logbooks or was it DOL? Okay. So 


there's missing tritium logbooks for 


September 1st, 1972 through December 31st, 


1972 and January 1st, 1975 through December 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

31st, 1976. 


I wanted to be specific on those 


dates so you'd know, this may lead to an 


83.14 consideration and NIOSH should present 


that at our September meeting. Okay. This 


next issue is for tritium and the stable 


metal tritides. 


This is our open item and NIOSH's 


Evaluation Report assumes that tritium 


uptakes are from tritiated water and does 


not include exposures to other tritium 


compounds. 


NIOSH's response to this was to 


revise the TBD to include conditions 


applying the OTIB-66 for that historic 


exposure and that it was -- excuse me, 


NIOSH's position is that, hafnium tritide is 


the insoluble special tritium compound of 


concern and that historical exposure was 


limited to a very small discrete group of 


workers, known to NIOSH by name, and that 


OTIB-66 provides a bounding dosed estimation 


model. 


The Work Group concluded that 


support workers had a potential to the 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

special tritium compound exposure as well 


and NIOSH did develop a contamination swipe-


based model in response that concluded that 


the STCs did not present any internal dose 


to support workers theoretically or 


physically. 


The Work Group questioned NIOSH's 


proposed model because it applied to 


exposure potential versus dose 


reconstruction. It also raised 


uncertainties and data gaps. At our last 


Work Group Meeting, it was just in June on 


the 5th, NIOSH agreed that special tritium 


compounds need to be dose-reconstructed and 


that they will address the data gaps, the 


treatment of uncertainties and identify 


applicable worker categories. 


So where we are now is, July 12th 


is the due date for the proposed model. So 


we have set up a Work Group Meeting on 


August 7th to review that new model. And 


that, I'm hoping we'll be able to bring that 


before the full Board for a vote on just 


that tritides model. 


Should I go ahead and stop for 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

questions on tritides or should I move right 


along? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Why don't we 


stop for questions for, sort of, this first 


part. 


MEMBER BEACH: That's kind of 


what I thought. Everything else is just a 


closeout. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, and 


anybody have questions, because if not, I 


can start? Okay. If you go back to your 


fifth slide, data accuracy for internal 


exposure sources, under issue status you 


have, Work Group found impasse over being 


able, I don't understand what that means. 


MEMBER BEACH: Well, we couldn't 


prove a negative. That's in my terms, but 


I'm sure Joe can be a little more eloquent 


in explaining that. 


MR. FITZGERALD: You know, this 


was one of these issues where you had 


documentation that placed, you know, these 


nuclides in the workplace, and this was the 


King report, even the Meyer report. 


However, there wasn't really a good way to, 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

any specific evidence or confirmation, 


whether the form of those nuclides, the 


exposure of workers to those nuclides, or 


use of those nuclides, in fact, led to 


active exposure. 


And we had a lengthy debate on 


the question and it really comes down to, it 


is difficult to demonstrate or prove an 


exposure potential in lieu of actual 


documentation that these exposures took 


place. We tried different ways of doing 


that, even looked at incident reports. 


And I think what we came to was 


an acknowledgment that you need some 


corroboration beyond the fact of a document 


placing a source term in a workplace. You 


need some corroboration that there was 


actually an exposure link between that 


exposure source, you know, whether the form, 


whether the handling or something that would 


confirm that there was this exposure taking 


place on a routine basis. 


We couldn't satisfy, in my mind, 


that test, even though we tried to figure 


that out. So we used the word impasse 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

because it's one of these situations where 


it was difficult to write it off because, 


certainly, we could establish it was, you 


know, being handled, was in the workplace, 


but on the other hand, you couldn't really 


cross the finish line and confirm that the 


exposure was taking place. 


And this was for a whole span of 


nuclides. This is, again, a laboratory, so 


there was a lot of nuclides that were 


certainly in the workplace, but you could 


not prove it. So we decided that, you know, 


to agree to disagree that there was really 


any way, one way or the other, to prove it. 


And we felt that that 


corroboration was the key. You had to have 


something that would corroborate the 


exposure beyond the fact that these 


documents placed them there. And that 


wasn't available, certainly, to the Work 


Group. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think I 


understand and at least I understand the 


impasse, what you meant by impasse. I 


couldn't tell if the Work Group was at an 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

impasse or the Work Group with NIOSH was at 


an impasse, but that's helpful. 


If you go to the indoor radon, 


this issue's been around for a while, this 


83.14 issue, the tritium, so NIOSH's plan is 


to present an 83.14 at the next -- did I 


miss that on your presentation, LaVon? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, it was 


because we haven't actually got a petitioner 


yet and so we don't have a petition, but 


yes, we will be presenting that at the next 


meeting. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: If you have a 


petitioner. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. We've got 


to find somebody that hasn't been 


compensated already through the SEC that'll 


fit into that period. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 


MEMBER BEACH: And it's my 


understanding it'll be all workers. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, it will be 


all workers. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 


MEMBER BEACH: Because if you 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

remember, we used the tritium to place them 


in R and SW. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. It's 


been going on for a while and I was just 


trying to make sure I understood. And then 


my final question is, I'd like to understand 


this tritium issue better, because every 


time I think I understand it, the ground 


seems to shift and I can't tell who agrees 


and disagrees and what's going on. 


MEMBER BEACH: I'll take a first 


stab and then I'm sure Jim was ready to get 


up. We actually were ready to come to the 


Board for a vote back in 2010 and NIOSH, at 


that time, told us that they had swipe data, 


tritium swipe data, so we, as the Work 


Group, decided to ask NIOSH to go and model 


that data for us. 


DR. NETON: Yes, I can maybe 


expand a little bit on this. The issue has 


to do with the insoluble tritides, most 


notably, hafnium tritide that is very 


insoluble. So even though a large 


percentage of the Mound workforce where 


tritium was handled, in fact, everyone in 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

that building was on a tritium bioassay 


program. The idea is the hafnium tritide is 


relatively insoluble and will not show up in 


the urine, so how do you know how much the 


intakes were. 


As Josie pointed out, there is a 


large set of data, of smear data, that they 


would smear the facilities on a routine 


basis, and I want to say there was 60,000, I 


know there's thousands, but 60,000 seems to 


ring a bell, 60,000 smears of the facility 


over a long period of time. 


And those data were taken and 


evaluated, and then once you know how much 


tritium was there, tritium or tritides, you 


can't really tell, but you assume all of the 


smear was a hafnium tritide, and then you, 


with a resuspension factor, can come up with 


some inhalation exposure scenarios. 


And using some pretty 


conservative assumptions, the doses to 


workers from inhalation of pure hafnium 


tritide, which is, not all is hafnium 


tritide, was pretty small. I mean, the 


original estimates for the test case was 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

millirem levels, but we acknowledged that it 


could be in the 100 millirem range, but the 


doses are small nonetheless, and we would 


include those doses in the dose 


reconstructions for anyone who was in the SW 


Building, meaning they were on the tritium 


monitoring program, and were support 


workers. That's it in a nutshell. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Yes, 


that makes sense. Joe, you have anything to 


add? 


MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, this is 


kind of a really interesting issue. It 


touches a number of the kinds of dilemmas 


that we certainly have talked to the Board 


about in the past. And, certainly, the 


first issue was a plausibility question, 


because we got into, you know, there isn't 


really any monitoring data specific to the 


hafnium tritide. 


And I think, certainly, one could 


look toward tritium, but then it, sort of, 


became a question of, similar to what you 


just heard on GSI, you know, yes, you can do 


that, but should you do that? And we did 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

kick that around, so that was one aspect of 


the issue. 


The other issue is something I 


heard the Board discuss as well, earlier, 


which is, you need to, sort of, figure out 


which workers are affected in order to have 


a pathway. And for the operators, that was 


a little clearer. You know, I think it was 


easier to finger who those are. 


But we understood there were a 


number of support workers that certainly 


supported the operation who, likewise, would 


have had some potential for exposure. So 


this issue quickly, sort of, devolved into, 


can we even identify the population, the 


cohort of workers, you know, the 


technicians, the housekeepers, anyone who 


would have actually had access and would 


have supported the operation. 


And was there a way you could 


actually characterize their exposure in 


addition to these operators who, you know, 


we had some bioassay at least? And that was 


trickier because these people weren't as 


well defined and that was, certainly, 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

another aspect of that question. 


But we, thirdly, got into yet 


another aspect of it, which was, sort of, 


the exposure potential question itself. And 


I think Jim will acknowledge, that sort of 


got a little confusing at some point because 


it certainly, the model, at some point, 


wasn't being necessarily advanced as a dose 


reconstruction method, but more as a means 


to ascertain whether the exposure was not 


negligible, I guess you might say. 


So we, sort of, had a, over the 


past six months, bit of a debate on, how 


does one approach the question of exposure 


potential and do we, in fact, have something 


that ought to be dose reconstruction, and is 


this method something that should be judged 


as a DR method? I think we have solved 


that. 


It did take some time to at least 


turn that corner and I think that's solved. 


So really, at this point, we're sort of back 


to, you know, is this model one that has 


sufficient root in site data, later 


question, and, you know, is the worker 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

cohort that's affected sufficiently defined 


that you would know who to assign the doses 


to? 


So I think those are more 


traditional questions than the one we've 


been grappling for the last six months. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I was thinking 


this follows some of the ten-year 


recommendations, which is, you know, 


bringing in outside expertise like a 


theologist or a philosopher, or something, I 


don't know. 


MR. FITZGERALD: It was getting 


difficult to solve. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. A real 


question is, will this help us deal with the 


other sites where we have this, I guess, 


similar exposure issue? Because I know 


we've got some sites where this has come up 


and every time we talk about it, fingers 


point back to Mound. 


DR. NETON: I would say it would 


if we had similar levels or amounts of smear 


data. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

DR. NETON: I mean, that's the 


key to this whole analysis. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, okay. 


That's why I asked. But I think it's also, 


I'm thinking about, important that when we 


consider this, when you present it and so 


forth, that Simond Saw, if we're going to be 


using the same approach at other sites it's, 


sort of, understanding some of the potential 


limitations of this approach, or in some 


ways, more important than just thinking at 


it for, you know, the Mound factual 


situation. 


Anybody else on the Board have 


questions going to this part? 


MEMBER BEACH: And if any of the 


other Work Group Members want to speak up, 


feel free to. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You're doing 


well for summarizing what's been, as you 


pointed out, a lot of effort and work. 


MEMBER BEACH: Thanks to my help 


there. Okay. So we'll move on to the next 


slide which is, high-fired plutonium-238. 


The Evaluation Report does not address the 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

relative insolubility of the high-fired 


plutonium-238 at Mound. 


NIOSH agrees that exposure to 


special solubility types Pu-238 did occur 


and proposed a type-L excretion model to 


bound doses. The Work Group found that this 


model may not truly be bounding for all 


solubility types, plutonium-238, and 


proposed a type-J model, which NIOSH agreed 


to make available to the dose 


reconstructors. 


I did get one email from Mr. 


Poston because he wasn't familiar with the 


type-L, type-J, so I do have background 


White Papers that can be sent out if there's 


any other questions on that. We closed this 


issue and it has become a Site Profile 


issue. 


So the DR approach for D&D-era 


bioassay, evidence exists that worker 


exposure to residual contamination from 


sources generated during the life of the 


plant, particularly during D&D activities. 


The Evaluation Report indicates 


that NIOSH would continue to investigate 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

whether a mismatch existed between the 


bioassay requirements, exposure potential, 


and whether a lack of termination bioassays 


would hamper dose reconstructability for D&D 


workers. 


SC&A found evidence that 


bioassays may not have been performed 


adequately and dose distributions for D&D 


workers may not be bounded by the co-worker 


model proposed. NIOSH provided data and 


documentation to show that the termination 


bioassay data for D&D workers at Mound was 


relatively high, and I believe it was in the 


90th percentile. So we were surprised and 


pleased with that. 


The data is sufficiently accurate 


for DR purposes and we also closed that. 


Tritides might be another spot where it gets 


into the D&D time frame, but we'll know more 


about that next Board Meeting. 


So the approach for neutron 


doses. The Evaluation Report indicates that 


neutron energy reported at Mound was 


approximately 4.5 MeVs, which is reliably 


monitored by NTA film. Wide availability of 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

photon measurements make use of n/p ratios, 


possibly, to provide a bounding dose 


estimate. 


NIOSH concludes that the NTA film 


sensitivity to low-energy neutrons and track 


fading are not SEC issues. SC&A questioned 


the extent to which NTA film energy 


dependence and fading issues undercut dose 


reconstruction with sufficient accuracy. 


NIOSH proposed a correction 


factor to compensate for the later proposed 


application of generalized MCNP model to 


determine dose below the NTA energy 


threshold of 0.5 MeVs. The Work Group, 


concerned over the lack of site-specific 


data for the MCNP model and whether 


conversion factors are accurate for Mound. 


We spent quite a few meetings on this topic. 


Based on additional NIOSH analysis, the Work 


Group agreed that the MCNP-based conversion 


factors was ultimately satisfied with 


NIOSH's proposed resolution to the NTA track 


fading. 


We closed this issue, however, we 


do have remaining issues to be addressed 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

under the Site Profiles issues. 


This slide deals with the beta 


and low-energy photon exposures. Again, the 


Evaluation Report assumes the design of the 


T Building processing areas controlled the 


beta dose to a sufficient extent. The site, 


therefore, did not record beta doses. 


NIOSH notes that most of the 


plutonium-239 processing took place after 


non-penetrating doses from beta and low-


energy gamma radiation began to be 


monitored. Therefore, doses are available 


for the most-exposed workers. 


NIOSH found that it had not 


technically demonstrated that sufficient 


accurate -- boy, I can't talk today, their 


methods were in place to measure and record 


worker shallow doses or to create a coworker model database in the period from 


1949 to '78. 


Following that exchange and 


analysis between SC&A and NIOSH, NIOSH 


recommended assigning a shallow dose as a 


function of ratio to photon doses for 


certain workers for certain time periods. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

The Work Group agreed with that and we have 


remaining Site Profile issues here as well. 


Okay. The next two slides just 


really briefly go over other SEC issues that 


were closed. Monitored workers were the 


most highly exposed. We closed this one. 


There have been no complaints or issues 


presented from the workforce indicating 


inadequate badging, despite the absence of 


formal policies or other documentation and 


no evidence that badging or bioassay 


policies were not strictly enforced. 


The other one, adequacy and 


completeness of external dose data, while no 


verification have been conducted, SC&A did a 


limited sampling, about 22 cases, and did 


not find any SEC-level problems. 


For the ambient internal dose, 


responding to the Work Group's concern 


regarding the site-wide ambient 


contamination, there was a statement that 


said there was none, NIOSH agreed to go in 


and change that statement, so they revised 


the statement. 


And concerning actinium, 1991, 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

the actinium-227 urine samples. NIOSH 


investigated the reconstruction significance 


of the bioassay program failure, leading to 


Price-Anderson Act violation. The Work 


Group ultimately agreed with NIOSH's 


resolution on the DR issues. 


And questions on any of those? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any Board 


Members have questions on those? Any 


comments from Jim or Joe? Okay. 


MEMBER BEACH: Great. And the 


last slide just talks about our review, 


which I already went over, for the path 


forward for the Mound Working Group. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Any 


comments on that? So you expect to be back 


here before us in September to finish up? 


MEMBER BEACH: Based on NIOSH, if 


they are able to get the model in, and 


there's four action items on this issue, by 


July 12th, that gives us time to review and 


our Work Group Meeting is scheduled for 


August 7th, I think I said. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I thought you 


were leaving the room, Jim. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

DR. NETON: I have a slight 


update on that delivery date. 


MEMBER BEACH: Oh, okay. 


DR. NETON: It's slipped a week 


and now it will be July 19th, is the 


projected delivery date. At the same time I 


put in for the request to get the date, 


there was some competing and conflicting 


work that was being done at the same time, 


and it took a little precedence, so there's 


going to be a week’s slippage in that date, 


just so you know. 


MEMBER BEACH: And do you think 


you'll be able to do all the items on that 


list? 


DR. NETON: I think we'll get --


yes, we'll have something to say about all 


of it. I don't know that we're going to 


have the final model all -- the model will 


be done and we'll update the White Paper, 


but we may not have a TIB that is an exact, 


you know, the model itself. We'll be able 


to describe how we're going to use the 


contents of the White Paper to do the dose 


reconstructions. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MEMBER BEACH: What about putting 


the workers that were involved, do you feel 


like that's going to be an item --


DR. NETON: I don't think that's 


an issue. I think we've known that, but 


that's retrievable information. 


MEMBER BEACH: For the support 


workers. 


DR. NETON: Yes, well, the 


support workers, I think, anyone who left a 


tritium urine sample, which is anyone who 


worked in the SW Building, would be given 


that dose, because they're, by definition, 


tritium workers. 


And so it wouldn't be the whole 


site, it would just be those people who 


actually worked in the SW Building where the 


excess activity occurred. 


MEMBER BEACH: Okay. Makes 


sense. So even with the week slippage, I 


think we're still going to be okay; on 


track. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Just one 


question, I understand why the model may not 


be in, sort of, final TIB format, but can we 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

at least make sure that it's a usable model? 


I mean, it's applicable to the site and so 


forth. 


DR. NETON: Yes, I think it's 


pretty self-obvious in the White Paper 


itself. As Joe indicated, there was some 


confusion as to whether this was a model or 


whether this was a demonstration of 


negligible doses that didn't need to be 


incorporated into dose reconstruction. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


DR. NETON: We have conceded that 


now, anything over 1 millirem is going to go 


in the dose reconstruction, so it has to be 


a co-worker-type model, and it would be 


fairly simple. I mean, we will use the 95th 


percentile value in each of those years and 


estimate the intakes, so it's a pretty 


straightforward model, but we'll make sure 


that it's obvious. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


DR. NETON: Provide some example 


calculations. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We've had some 


issues lately at some other sites too where 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-- 

 

 

we seem to lose sight of the ultimate goal 


and so forth. That's everybody, so it's not 


just NIOSH. 


DR. NETON: Understand. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So I just want 


to make sure. Paul? 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Josie, I'll ask 


you this, but maybe it also goes to SC&A, 


does the NIOSH document that's coming out on 


the 20, what's the new date? Whatever it 


is. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The 19th. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Nineteenth, does 


that require SC&A review prior to our Work 


Group Meeting? 


MEMBER BEACH: Yes, it does. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Because I'm a 


little concerned now we're starting to push 


MEMBER BEACH: I guess that's a 


good question for Joe if that's enough time. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: You know, if we 


end up with something like the day before 


it's always a little inconvenient for the 


Work Group to --


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, I think the 


benefit here is that we have been working 


and looking at this model in various forms. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: So you'll be able 


to turn it around pretty quickly. 


MR. FITZGERALD: Right. We've 


seen this model in its basic form since last 


December. 


So there may be some loose ends 


which were identified at the last meeting, 


but nothing so major that we couldn't 


address those in the time frame. So I'm 


pretty confident, as long as it's 


essentially the same model, we'll be okay. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. We have 


time, so I suggest that we go into Board 


Work time mode and let's get through what we 


can on that and make it a little easier for 


tomorrow and for unexpected lengthier 


discussions that we never know about, never 


can predict. 


So I think there are two issues I 


talked about yesterday that we wanted to 


talk about now. And we have another item we 


can do too. Yes, okay, because we have some 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

more -- we have about two hours of Board 


work time, so we'll leave at least an extra 


minute or two to add to our breaks here. 


One issue is the Board comments 


from last two meetings and those are under, 


you know, Board work session, I think, on 


the -- yes, it's under Board work session. 


MEMBER BEACH: Do you have the 


title of the problem? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We will start 


with the December. And let's start with the 


December log and refer back because we've 


got 96 pages of the other and I'm afraid 


we'll get lost. If we need to, if we have 


questions, we can refer back to the 


transcript, the longer version. 


So this is, again, sort of a 


memory test and these first five are 


comments from a person involved with the 


Hooker Electrochemical and I don't know, 


Henry, that's your Work Group. I don't know 


if you have any response. I think they look 


pretty straightforward and I think, to a 


large extent, were dealt with in the 


discussion. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes, we covered 


it. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Next one 


is related to Pinellas, which seems to be 


more of a factual thing referred back to 


NIOSH. A report, basically, referred back 


to NIOSH and to the Work Group. Phil, and 


that, again, looks straightforward to me. 


Next one is the same. I think 


these are a whole series, if we remember, 


where former workers at Pinellas reported a 


number of incidents and other information to 


us, so that's all of the next page, eight 


through 13. So, Phil, is that all? That's 


your Work Group, right? Does that look all 


straightforward to you guys? 


MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Thanks. 


Number 14 is from someone asking about the 


Savannah River site. Yes, that's a mea 


culpa. We'll all try to get reports out and 


information. We were all scrambling and 


time was short. And again, it's some 


general comments there on that. Mark's not 


here, but as I recall, that looks, again, 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

pretty straightforward and so forth. 


Again, these are a whole series 


on Savannah River that I think have largely 


been dealt with with our follow-up, so 


that's up through Number 20. Again, 


comments from the petitioner and it looks 


like, you know, responses look responsive 


and we've also gone ahead and approved that 


SEC. 


Okay. Number 21 is the, starting 


on Page 6, representing Senators Schumer and 


Gillibrand. These are a set on Linde and 


most refer back to Mr. Crawford, who's since 


left, but I think, again, these look like 


they've been dealt with either through NIOSH 


action or through the follow-up by the Work 


Group. 


Number 26 on Page 7 refers to 


Fernald and this is still under resolution, 


right? Is that fair? 


MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, it is. The 


Work Group is working on that one. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: SC&A is looking 


into her particular comments on that and we 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

can address it in the next Work Group 


meeting. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Number 


27 and 28, again, were more comments in 


reference to the -- this was the Class 


Definition issue for the Savannah River 


site. And again, I think they have been 


dealt with with our action on that site. 


Okay. So I think that takes care 


of those. February meeting. Again, another 


set of -- it sort of reminds you what the 


agenda was, but we dealt with all that. 


Hangar 481, we've dealt with or closed and 


that really takes care of those. 


And then starting on Page 3 


Number 11, these are Sandia and most of 


these are informational or comments, again, 


I think have been addressed in the action on 


the SEC action on that site. 


Back to Fernald, Numbers 16 and 


17, Page 4, Brad, those look --


MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, these are 


ongoing ones that we have discussed and 


we're still looking at with SC&A and NIOSH. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Page 5, 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

comments related to Weldon Spring and I 


believe these are all being followed up and 


so forth, so they look appropriate to me and 


that takes us through Page 6. 


Okay. So again, I think we need, 


then, a motion to accept these and isn't 


that the usual procedure, Ted? 


MR. KATZ: Sure. You don't 


really have to vote on these. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, then 


fine. We reviewed them and by consent --


okay. 


MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: In the 


summary transcripts, there is a category 1 


to 4 --


MR. KATZ: David, can you get 


closer to the mic just for the sake of 


recording? 


MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes, in the 


table on transcripts there's categorization 


1 through 4, could someone say what they 


mean? What is comment 1 --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I hate to say 


this, but probably not; maybe Stu can. We 


got into this with our Worker Outreach Work 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Group, and I think at one point there were, 


like, 25 codes, and I think we got reduced. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, it came from 


the Worker Outreach Work Group. There's a 


categorization of comments into categories, 


and I'm not familiar with the 


categorizations standing here, but I can 


provide it to you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, we'll get 


it to you. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Shortly. 


MR. KATZ: The whole point, 


though, of the categorization was so that, 


in the future, if one wanted to do some sort 


of analysis by a category of comment, one 


could. But for discussing the comments, 


it's not really germane or useful. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And at one 


time, the way these were formatted, that's 


all the information we had on the response 


and it was very confusing because none of us 


could remember if there were more codes and 


so forth. 


It makes sense, again, for the 


people trying to categorize these, and sort 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

these, and so forth. 


MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay. 


Thanks. 


MEMBER BEACH: I thought we got a 


code cheat sheet at one point. 


MR. KATZ: We did. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: It's on the O: 


drive. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Next time we'll 


try to remember to put it out there. 


MEMBER BEACH: So did we get 


through all of these or do we still have --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Did I 


miss something? 


MEMBER BEACH: Well, there was 


one for the February 29th -- Dr. Lockey was 


listed as Sandia Work Group Chair and that 


wasn't correct; it was Dr. Lemen. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 


MEMBER BEACH: So I didn't know 


if that needed to be noted to changed. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. The 


other item we wanted to move on to is to 


talk about the SC&A assignments. That's 


going to take some time, but we have time. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, John, do you want to -- Stiver? 


MR. STIVER: Sure. 


MEMBER BEACH: And was that under 


the deliverables or was that separate? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'm trying to 


see where that is myself. 


I have a hard copy. 


MR. KATZ: Do want to have hard 


copies made? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


MEMBER BEACH: What's the title 


of it? 


MR. KATZ: New work maybe, or 


something like that. John, do you remember 


what the file title is or the email title? 


Because I would have forwarded it on. 


MR. STIVER: I believe it's 


entitled budget discussions for Full Board 


Meeting at such and such. I don't remember 


the exact title of it. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Let's talk 


agenda while Ted's away, but no, while most 


of us are here and so forth. LaVon has 


given his presentation for tomorrow, though 


I think we got another issue for him 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

tomorrow, but it's separate. And then we've 


got just Medina and Linde to do in the 


morning. 


The SEC petition letters are 


ready so we'll be able to do them, even 


though we haven't reviewed them all, the 


sites, yet, but I've got a draft for Medina 


done. Linde may take some time, so I think 


we should be finished up by 10:30 or so in 


the morning, is my sense -- before noon. 


MEMBER ROESSLER: As long as 


you're on the same flight I'm on, I'm not 


worrying. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And someone 


needs to retrieve Dr. Lockey. Did you see 


him out there? He's on the same flight too. 


 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 


matter went off the record at 2:23 p.m. and 


resumed at 2:34 p.m.) 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: While we're 


waiting for copies, before we lose any other 


Board Members, I have all the bad English I 


want with Paul in the back and Wanda gone. 


Okay. I'm going to start with the 


Winchester. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

The Advisory Board on Radiation 


Worker Health Board has evaluated the 


Special Exposure Cohort SEC petition 00199 


concerning workers at the Winchester 


Engineering Analytical Center in Winchester, 


Massachusetts under the statutory 


requirements established by the Energy 


Employees Occupational Illness Compensation 


Program Act of 2000, EEOICPA, and 


incorporated into 42 CFR 83.13. 


The Board respectfully recommends 


that SEC status be accorded to all employees 


of the Department of Energy, it's 


predecessor agencies, and their contractors 


and subcontractors who worked at the 


Winchester Engineering and Analytical Center 


in Winchester, Massachusetts from January 


1st, 1952 through December 31st, 1961 for a 


number of work days aggregating at least 250 


work days occurring either solely under this 


employment or in combination with work days 


within the parameters established for one or 


more other Classes of employees included in 


the Special Exposure Cohort. 


This recommendation is based on 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

the following factors; individuals employed 


at the Winchester Engineering and Analytical 


Center during the time period in questions, 


worked on technology for extracting uranium 


and thorium from uranium bearing ores and on 


procedures for reducing radiological hazards 


associated with mill operations. 


 National Institute for 


Occupational Safety and Health, NIOSH, 


review available monitoring data as well as 


available process and source term 


information for this facility found that 


NIOSH lacked the sufficient information 


which includes in vivo and in vitro 


monitoring data to allow it to estimate, 


with sufficient accuracy, the potential 


internal and external exposures to uranium, 


thorium, or their progeny, which employees 


at this facility may have been subjected. 


The Board concurs with this 


determination. Three, NIOSH determined that 


health may have been endangered for these 


Winchester Engineering and Analytical Center 


employees during the time period in 


question. The Board also concurs with this 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

determination. 


Based on these considerations, 


discussions at the June 19th to 21st, 2012 


Board Meeting held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 


the Board recommends that this Class be 


added to the SEC. Enclosed is the 


documentation from the Board Meeting where 


this SEC Class was discussed. 


The documentation includes copies 


of the petition that NIOSH reviewed thereof 


and related materials. If any of these are 


unavailable at this time, they will follow 


shortly. 


And for the new Members, these 


are, sort of, standard formatted letters 


that go up and accompany the package that 


DCAS up through Dr. Howard, and up through 


the chain of command, so to speak, in the 


Department, up to the Secretary's level for 


approval, and so that includes a lot of --


including the transcript, and discussions, 


and so forth. 


So this is just, sort of, a 


transmittal letter for that based on the 


Board. Dr. Howard sends a cover memo that 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

also includes his recommendation on this, 


which, to date, have agreed with the Board's 


transmissions. A couple of minor glitches, 


but very minor. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: Shouldn't this 


be an 83.14? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Now, as our 


attorney can explain again, this keeps 


coming up, we used to have 83.14 mentioned, 


but the 83.14 is, essentially, encompassed 


within 83.13. 


MS. LIN: Right. So if you look 


at the regulatory provisions and see the 


differences between 83.13 and 14, the 83.13 


is the one that specifically talks about the 


SEC procedures and that's what we're dealing 


with here. 


I know we sometimes use the 83.14 


in the past to differentiate who actually 


initiated the petition, but since we're 


talking about meeting the statutory and 


regulatory requirements for the SEC Class to 


be added or denied, 83.13 is actually the 


correct provision here. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Every time we 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

get a new lawyer, we change it. No, these 


are pretty standard over time and there's 


lots of options. So anybody have any 


comments, suggestions? If the eagle eyes 


see anything they would like changed. Okay. 


We're still waiting on copies? Okay. 


Next slide, we'll do Hanford. 


The Advisory Board on Radiation Worker 


Health, the Board has evaluated Special 


Exposure Cohort, SEC petition 00201 


concerning workers at the Hanford Engineer 


Works in Richland, Washington under the 


statutory requirements established the 


Energy Employees Occupational Illness 


Compensation Program Act of 2000, EEOICPA, 


and incorporated it into 42 CFR Section 


83.13. 


The Board respectfully recommends 


that SEC status be accorded to all employees 


of the Department of Energy, its predecessor 


agencies, and their contractors and 


subcontractors who worked at the Hanford 


Engineer Works in Richland, Washington from 


July 1st, 1972 through December 31st, 1983 


for a number of work days aggregating at 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

least 250 work days occurring either solely 


under this employment or in combination with 


work days within the parameters established 


for one or more other Classes of employees 


included in the SEC. 


This recommendation is based on 


the following factors; individuals employed 


at the Hanford facility during the time 


period in question worked on the development 


and production of nuclear weapons, through 


the National Institute for Occupational 


Safety and Health, NIOSH, review of 


available monitoring data as well as 


available process and source term 


information for this facility, found that 


NIOSH lacked the sufficient information 


necessary to complete individual dose 


reconstructions with sufficient accuracy for 


internal radiological exposures due to 


highly-enriched uranium, uranium-233, 


thorium, or neptunium, during the time 


period in question. The Board concurs with 


this determination. 


Three, NIOSH determined that 


health may have been endangered for these 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hanford Engineer Works employees during the 


time in question. The Board also concurs 


with this determination. 


Based on these considerations and 


discussion at the June 19-21 Board Meeting 


held Santa Fe, New Mexico, the Board 


recommends that this Class be added to the 


SEC. Enclosed is the documentation from the 


Board Meeting where this SEC Class was 


discussed. 


The documentation includes copies 


of the petition that NIOSH reviewed thereof 


and related materials. If any of these 


items are unavailable at this time, they 


will follow shortly. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: Typo. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: 2012. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: No. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Oh, another 


one. 


Again, the one thing we have to 


be, sort of, careful of is to use the 


correct facility name and that's been, 


probably, the thing we've had the most 


difficulty with just to make sure it's 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

clarified between the various SEC reports 


and so forth, but it has some legal 


importance. 


The final letter, which actually, 


as you will see, this is a two-for, because 


even though we haven't talked about Medina 


yet, officially, this has the Medina letter 


buried in. The track changes. So whatever 


crossed out, you know, since these are very 


similar except for dates, locations, things 


like that. 


So I'll read it as Clarksville 


since that's what we've done. The Advisory 


Board on Radiation Worker Health, the Board 


has evaluated Special Exposure Cohort, SEC 


petition 00202, concerning workers at the 


Clarksville Modification Center, Fort 


Campbell, in Clarksville, Tennessee under 


the statutory requirements established by 


the Energy Employees Occupational Illness 


Compensation Program Act of 2000, EEOICPA, 


incorporated in 42 CFR Section 83.13. 


The Board respectfully recommends 


that SEC status be accorded to all employees 


of the Department of Energy, its predecessor 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

agencies, and their contractors and 


subcontractors, who worked at the 


Clarksville Modification Center, Fort 


Campbell, in Clarksville, Tennessee from 


August 1st, 1949 through December 31st, 1967 


for a number of work days aggregating at 


least 250 work days occurring either solely 


under this employment or in combination with 


work days within the parameters established 


for one or more other Classes of employees 


included in this Special Exposure Cohort. 


This recommendation is based on 


the following factors; individuals employed 


at the Clarksville Modification Center 


during the time period in question worked on 


technical tasks related to the production of 


nuclear weapons. 


 National Institute for 


Occupational Safety and Health, NIOSH, 


review of available monitoring data as well 


as available process and source term 


information for this facility found that 


NIOSH lacks sufficient information necessary 


to complete individual dose reconstructions 


with sufficient accuracy for internal 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

radiological exposures to uranium, 


plutonium, and tritium, which employees at 


this facility may have been subjected during 


the time period in question. The Board 


concurs with this determination. 


NIOSH determined that health may 


have been endangered for employees at the 


Clarksville Modification Center in 


Clarksville, Tennessee during the time 


period in question. The Board also concurs 


with this determination. 


Based on these considerations and 


the discussion at the June 19-21, 2012 Board 


Meeting held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the 


Board recommends that this Class be added to 


the SEC. Enclosed is the documentation from 


the Board Meetings where this SEC Class was 


discussed. 


The documentation includes copies 


of the petition that NIOSH reviewed thereof 


and related materials. If any of these 


items are unavailable at this time, they 


will follow shortly. 


And actually, at least my copy 


doesn't have the final paragraph, but that's 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

boilerplate. Just in time. I need mine 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Question on this 


one. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I'm sorry, 


Paul. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: On this last one, 


on the second bullet on that last sentence, 


the phrase, which employees at this facility 


may have been subjected during the time 


period in question. I think, maybe, should 


start with the word to, to which the --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, that's a 


good point, Paul. 


MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: It may not 


matter much, but each time the Center is 


described, it has a slightly different name. 


It's three places; Clarksville Modification 


Center, Fort Campbell, in Clarksville, then 


we say, Employees of Clarksville, okay, 


that's fine, and then the last bullet, 


Clarksville Modification in Clarksville. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So the 


important one is the one in parentheses, the 


Class Definition, that's the one that has to 


be the most careful about. Okay? The other 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ones can --


MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Be whatever 


they want. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, refer --


MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. You can't 


put, like, you know, just this facility 


someplace, but the references are --


MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Just 


first one's --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. The first 


one, that's the key because that's the --


MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Legal Class ­

-


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- Legal Class 


Definition and has to match up in all the 


documentation. And some of these, the way 


that the covered facility list, sometimes 


uses terminology that is not in common use 


for that facility, so it can get a little 


bit confusing and even through our reports. 


That's one of the things that 


NIOSH and our lawyers check when they go 


through this process. So usually the 


process is that, somehow I inherited the job 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

of writing the letters, for the most part, 


and then we run them by NIOSH, obviously, 


and then Jenny, who is the lawyer now, 


whoever the attorney is here, and then make 


sure everything follows. 


And then we, you know, look for 


dangling participles and stuff like that, 


and so forth. 


John. And again, just for 


purposes of scheduling and so forth, we'll 


plan to go to about 3:15 and then we'll take 


a break. And then if we don't finish with 


this, we'll finish it up after the 


discussion of Titanium. So I don't think 


anybody's going anyplace anyway, but I want 


to make sure everybody gets a break. 


MR. STIVER: All right. Thank 


you, Dr. Melius, and my apologies for not 


ensuring that everybody got a copy of this. 


I know it's kind of hard sometimes to make 


sure everyone is fully informed. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think it's 


just, the Board, there's a lot of paperwork 


that comes --


MR. STIVER: Yes, I know. It's 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

hard to keep track of all these things. But 


at the last Procedures Meeting back in 


April, Brant Ulsh had put together a summary 


list of all the current OCAS documents that 


have been approved and before that 


particular list was prepared it had been, I 


believe, back in June 2009 since we had had 


an update. 


And so I thought with the 


upcoming meeting I'd take advantage and kind 


of, you know, cover the waterfront, take a 


look at all the different new documents, 


Technical Basis Documents, procedures, and 


PERs that had come out that might possibly 


be candidates for review. 


And after getting that, kind of, 


summary list we went through and winnowed it 


down and tried to pick out, basically, Site 


Profiles that we felt were complex enough 


and that might have a bit of ambiguity to 


them, or that seemed to me, by virtue of 


feedback I got from the dose reconstruction 


crew, that they have had problems that could 


benefit from a review. 


And from that list we got about 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

six. There were about six Site Profiles. 


And I started looking at the number of 


claims associated with each of those and I 


looked at those with 50 or more. And I came 


up with this -- firstly, if you go to Page 3 


on Table 2, there's a set of three Site 


Profiles. 


And these are the Pacific Proving 


Grounds, the PPG, WR Grace, which is an AWE 


that has a matrix associated with it, not a 


full Site Profile, although it is 43 pages 


long, and finally, the Battelle Memorial 


Institute in Columbus, Ohio, which is a 


fairly extensive site that has not been 


reviewed, mainly because it's a fairly new 


one and has not had any outreach activities 


or comments provided for it. 


But if we take a look at the 


Pacific Proving Grounds, this was a site, a 


very complex site, I know because, in my 


previous job, I spent about ten years doing 


dose reconstructions for the PPG. 


And, probably, the toughest part 


about that was working on the internal 


doses, and fortunately, for us, that's not 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

an issue because an SEC has been granted for 


the entire period of above ground nuclear 


testing from 1946 all the way through 1962. 


The issue is with the external 


dosimetry and I was very intimately involved 


with that when I was work with SAIC on the 


DTRA project. And a lot of problems with 


the dosimetry in the PPG. And our review of 


the Technical Basis Document, at least in 


our minds, shows that there are a lot of 


gaps there that haven't really been 


adequately addressed. 


Also, the co-worker model, the 


basis for that, are some Defense Nuclear 


Agency reports that came out in the mid1980s and those have since been updated. I 


know it, because I did the updates myself 


back in the 2004 to 2006 time frame. 


And so we feel there are enough 


issues there, enough, kind of gray areas, 


and in addition to that, the feedback I've 


got from Hans and some other people who have 


actually done PPG dose reconstructions that, 


that particular site would definitely 


benefit from an SC&A review. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

The second, being WR Grace, this 


is a site that operated from 1958, the 


operational period, or at least the AEC 


period, through December 1970. This is the 


Irwin, Tennessee plant. There were about a 


186 claims associated with this one. 


There have been two revisions, 


both complete rewrites. The latest was June 


2011. This was kind of an interesting one 


because it gets to the issue of worker 


placement. Again, we have a pretty 


complicated site that was doing a lot of 


uranium fuel production using highly-


enriched materials as well as thorium and 


plutonium. 


And there's an SEC for a select 


group of buildings where thorium was used 


from 1958 to 1970 for the entire period. 


Feedback I've gotten, again, from our dose 


reconstructors is that this is a fairly 


complicated site. They feel there may be 


some issues involved with some of the other 


isotopes. 


And also, the idea of being able 


to pin workers down to these particular 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

buildings where thorium was indeed 


processed, might be an issue. 


The third, Battelle, as I said, 


this is a pretty new Site Profile. It came 


out in March 2010. Here, there's only 86 


claims, but this was site that operated for 


43 years under the AEC. This is the 


Columbus, Ohio, not to be confused with up 


in the Hanford area. 


But there are two different 


facilities. They had a research reactor and 


a hot cell facility at one. And they did 


some other work studying analytical 


radiochemistry, and so forth, at the other 


facility. There have been no worker 


outreach activities, and again, no comments 


received. 


But, you know, given the 


longevity of this site, and the complexity, 


and potential for various types of 


exposures, and the fact that it has not been 


reviewed externally by us, though it has 


gone through internal review, we thought it 


would be a good candidate as well. 


So there were others. There were 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

quite a few AWEs, but those are the types 


that we felt are probably best addressed 


through these mini-reviews or, you know, 


there's just not enough cases, or claims, to 


really warrant a full-on Site Profile 


review. 


The other types of documents we 


looked at were the --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Let's --


MR. STIVER: This might be a good 


time stop and get some questions. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, just if 


there's questions. What I propose for a 


procedure is, let's, as he goes through the 


different types of documents, stop and ask 


questions, and if anybody has any, but we 


won't do any, sort of, approval or, you 


know, decision on tasking until we get to 


the end and do that all at once, because so 


much balancing between the different types 


of documents and so forth. 


And also, I think that'll make it 


easier. And so, you know, I think Stu 


already has a comment. Go ahead. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Stu Hinnefeld, I 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

just want to offer, on Battelle, the 


Columbus site to Battelle is the subject of 


an ongoing data capture in order to clarify 


that, even though the Site Profile was 


written just in 2010. 


You know, there's certain things 


that we're not certain we can do there, 


certain types of exposures, and we're up 


there this summer. I think we've got a data 


capture coming up up there that we think is 


going to be the last one. 


There's a decent chance that 


there will be an SEC for some portion of 


that period. So it's just a suggestion that 


maybe, you know, that may want to wait until 


we've completed that, at least, and have our 


best, you know, information out there. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: One thought on 


that might be to wait until you've done your 


data capture, have some idea, and then we 


can revisit that in September also. You 


know, depending on how it looks and may you 


can tell, maybe you can't, but let's, sort 


of, keep it as an update. 


MR. STIVER: Okay. Thank you, 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stu, we weren't aware of that. I think that 


would be a good idea to postpone that then 


until after they're complete. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


MR. STIVER: The other types of 


documents we looked at --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We have two 


other --


MR. STIVER: Okay. I'm sorry. 


MEMBER MUNN: I'm glad we're 


going to wait for Battelle, even though it 


seems to me that that's legitimate and would 


be a very useful review for us to have. And 


it's clear to me why WR Grace would be 


something we'd also be very interested in 


seeing. 


I have some reservations about 


the Pacific Proving Grounds, although it's 


informative to know that we have a couple of 


people who have extensive experience with 


the site already, you know, who wouldn't 


have to get up to speed on it. 


I'm not at all sure whether it 


would be very illuminating for us, given the 


assumption, I'm assuming, that this is going 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

to be a covered SEC. And that it's highly 


unlikely that we would be doing any 


extensive work with it. Am I incorrect in 


that? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It is a covered 


SEC. 


MEMBER MUNN: And since it is, 


it's hard for me to understand how this 


would be very illustrative for the Board. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think we have 


the non-presumptive cancer issue, though, 


that have to be reconstructed. 


MEMBER MUNN: Yes. I understand 


that, but I guess what I'm really saying is, 


we have a limited amount of information 


that, it seems to me, we're going to be able 


to get, even with well-instructed people in 


terms of this particular site. 


But if we want to save your 


money, if we want to keep you under budget, 


that might be the one, from a purely 


academic point of view, that might give us 


less long-term information that we need than 


the other two; only a thought. 


MR. STIVER: Could I respond? 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


MR. STIVER: Actually, at the 


PPG, the internal doses are quite small for 


most of the personnel. However, the 


external doses can range, you know, 


depending on the operation and the type of 


personnel who are involved, the types of 


people we're going to be dealing with are 


the rad safers who got the highest doses. 


It would be the contractors or 


the DOE people, or at the time, AEC, as well 


as Holmes & Narver, and some of the other 


contract people who went out right after the 


shots and did surveys and that sort of 


thing. 


And so there's some pretty high 


exposures based on the dosimetry that was 


available. Another complicating factor is 


that, after Operation Castle, beginning with 


Operation Redwing in 1956, they went to a 


permanent film badge dosimeter and it was 


the first time they actually badged 


everybody. 


And so each person got a 


permanent badge. And then they also, 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

whenever they went off on these particular 


sites for what they had the potential for 


accruing significant dose, they gave them 


what was a mission badge, a one-day badge, 


and they were supposed to wear these things 


together simultaneously, and of course, then 


you'd have -- the mission badges would be, 


like, plums in the pudding, basically. 


This permanent badge would be the 


sum of everything that was in the mission 


badges plus all the environmental doses they 


could get. Well, it turns out that, often 


times, the mission badge zone far exceeds 


permanent badge zone, so it was evident they 


weren't wearing those continuously. 


Also, at Redwing, and also at 


Operation Dominic 1 in 1962, almost, I don't 


know, I can't say all the badges, but a 


large fraction of the badges were damaged 


from water, and heat, and humidity, and 


actually, the films are available through 


Martha DeMarre at DOE out in Las Vegas. 


And when I was working at SAIC, 


every time we did dose reconstruction we'd 


request a film badge analysis report from 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

them. She'd go pull up the exact badges for 


that particular person, and most of them are 


there, they'd re-read them, and provide us a 


summary, photographs, as well as a 


description of whether they were damaged and 


the type of damage, and so forth. 


And so I noticed the Technical 


Basis Document states that, at Redwing, 


badges that were worn for six weeks or more 


were damaged, but that was just limited to 


the first badging period, which there were 


three. It turns out, all of them are 


subject to that type of damage. 


That was kind of a standard 


phrase that DNA used in the early-1980s. So 


there are these issues, kind of, subtleties. 


There's the note from a fax that a lot of 


the source documentation is dated. So I 


feel, you know, I fully respect Wanda's 


opinion, or concerns, but I do believe that 


that would be a site that might be worth 


pursuing. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Josie. 


MEMBER BEACH: John, you said on 


these unreviewed TBDs you concentrated on 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

the ones with 50 or more? 


MR. STIVER: Yes, there were some 


that looked like they'd be good candidates. 


RMI was one that was real similar to 


Fernald. 


MEMBER BEACH: Do you have the 


full list of those? 


MR. STIVER: I don't have it with 


me. Basically, the ones I counted, there 


were a handful, there were about six and I 


picked the top three. Another was the 


thermal diffusion S-50 at Oak Ridge, and I 


believe a couple of others, but RMI had 22 


claims. You know, is that really worth 


going to all this effort for 22 claims? I 


don't know. 


MEMBER BEACH: If you're one of 


those 22 it would be. 


MR. STIVER: If you're one of 


those 22, but I wanted to limit it to, you 


know, just the ones I thought were probably 


the most pertinent. It was a judgement 


call, but I do have the list of the others 


as well. So I can get it to you if you'd 


like to look at it. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MEMBER BEACH: I'd like to see a 


copy of that if you could. 


MR. STIVER: Okay. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Any 


other Board Member questions? 


MEMBER CLAWSON: I think we ought 


to have a Full Board Meeting at the Pacific 


Proving Grounds. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think Dr. 


Lemen went out that way last year to scout 


out ahead for us and find a suitable 


facility. 


Well, we can split the Board, 


half will go there and half will go to 


Amchitka. 


You get to flip a coin. Okay. 


Why don't we go on to Table 2. 


MR. STIVER: Table 2 is actually 


the Site Profiles. The next set of 


documents were TBDs. And typically, we've 


discussed these in the Procedures Work Group 


meetings or the Subcommittee meetings, 


excuse me. 


However, just because of the 


timing of the meetings and the fact that we 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

had this Board Meeting in advance, plus we 


had a new listing, an updated list, I 


thought it would be good just to put this 


out there of the ones that, you know, we 


thought, after doing our own kind of triage, 


that might be candidates for review. 


And the first group we looked at 


here on Table 3 on Page 5, these are 


documents that we've already reviewed. And 


of this, there were 39 total, 15 have been 


reviewed -- excuse me, I misread this. 


Thirty-nine have been reviewed and with no 


comments or anything like that, there's no 


need to re-review those. 


Fifteen had been re-reviewed once 


and we probably incorporated all the 


changes. We're not really too concerned 


about that. However, when you look at Table 


3, these are documents that have been 


reviewed two to three times since our 


initial review, and there's five of them 


here. 


And I believe at least the first, 


the second, and the fourth, the first being 


TIB-5, the second TIB-20, and then TIB-31, 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

look like they are probably the best 


candidates. Third is the quality assurance 


records management, that might be worth 


looking into, but it's not all that 


pertinent from our standpoint for dose 


reconstruction. 


Occupational and medical X-ray 


reconstruction for DOE sites, I think a lot 


of that is PROC-61. It's kind of been 


discussed in the Procedures Subcommittee. I 


think that's pretty well understood what's 


going on there. I don't know if that would 


really benefit from a full review. 


But internal dosimetry at work, 


and external dosimetry at work in an IREP 


model selection by ICD-9 code, that might 


be. Use of co-worker dosimetry data for 


external dose assignment, this is TIB-20. 


Site Profile and Technical Basis Document 


development, PROC-31. I thought that might 


be a good one as well. 


But again, I mean, this might be 


something that, you know, obviously, this 


isn't going to be decided today, but could 


certainly get the kind of preliminary triage 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

done, and then maybe at the July 31st 


Procedures Meeting, formally decide, you 


know, which ones might be reviewed. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Wanda. 


MEMBER MUNN: John, I certainly 


agree with you on the first three. I don't 


think there's any question that we really 


and truly need to take a look at those first 


three. I'm not so sure about the other two, 


but you're correct: probably we should talk 


about this in the Subcommittee meeting on 


July 31 and agree on that one way or the 


other. 


MR. STIVER: Right. 


MEMBER MUNN: But in my mind, 


there's no question about 5, 20, and 66. 


MR. STIVER: Okay. Table 4, 


previously reviewed documents that are no 


longer on the NIOSH-approved document list. 


These are really not a concern other than 


how they're going to be closed out. That's 


going to be, again, a Procedures 


Subcommittee tasking, I would assume. 


Table 5 on Page 7, this is 


approved documents for prospective review. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

These are 70 of TIBs, PROCs, and reports 


which have not been reviewed by SC&A. These 


are five unreviewed approved ORAU documents 


-- okay, yes, I thought I was on a different 


table here. Yes, these are ones that we 


would definitely want to look at. 


We also have, the next table is 


those that are still in the process that 


have not been approved yet. The first is 


TIB-55, this is the technical basis for 


conversion from NCRP Report 38, Neutron 


Quality Factors to ICRP-60 Radiation 


Weighting Factors for Respective IREP Input 


Neutron Energy Ranges. 


That's kind of a mouthful, but we 


thought that would be a good candidate for 


review. The next is TIB-79, Guidance in 


Assigning Occupational X-Ray Dose Under 


EEOICPA for X-Rays Administered Offsite. 


The third, this is report 45, 


Analytical Evaluation of the Amount of 


Radioactivity in a Radium Toggle Switch; 


maybe, maybe not. Like I said, the 


selection criteria were really those that 


had not been reviewed, that weren't already 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

under review as part of a Site Profile or 


some other venue. 


And so this one kind of came up. 


We probably should have struck it from the 


list. The last one is report 53, Analysis 


for Stratified Co-Worker Datasets. We think 


that's pertinent, given some of the 


discussions that have been held recently 


regarding stratification of co-worker 


models. 


And so are there any thoughts on 


that --


MEMBER BEACH: There's actually 


one more on the next page. 


MR. STIVER: Oh, excuse me. 


MEMBER BEACH: O-44. 


MR. STIVER: Yes, you're right. 


You know my own table better than I do. 


PROC-44, Special Exposure Cohorts, so that 


would also be one that we would want to take 


a look at. 


MEMBER MUNN: I agree with 


everything except 45. I really don't know 


that that's --


MR. STIVER: Yes, 45, I think 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

probably shouldn't have even made it onto 


the list. 


MEMBER MUNN: Yes, that would be 


better, I think, to knock that one off. 


MR. STIVER: We'll take that one 


out. 


MEMBER MUNN: But certainly, 53 


and 44 as well as OTIB-55 and 79; very 


worthwhile. 


MR. STIVER: Okay. Table 6, so 


this is the one I thought I was looking at 


earlier, this is the prospective documents 


for future reference. Let's see, TIB-41, 


this is the Graded Approach for Estimating 


External Dose to Workers at AWE Sites. It 


sounds to be kind of an efficiency method. 


Some kind of a refinement of an efficiency 


method. We would probably want to look at 


that. 


TIB-71 seems to be very limited 


in scope. This is the Calculation of Doses 


from Intakes of Uranium Aluminide. Again, 


I'm not quite sure how extensive the 


applicability would be for that particular 


document. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

TIB-76, Guiding Reconstruction of 


Intakes of Thorium Resulting from Nuclear 


Weapons Programs. I think that would 


definitely be on the short list of documents 


we'd like to see. 


And Report 60, Neutron Dose from 


Highly-Enriched Uranium. I think that would 


also be a valuable one. And again, these 


have not been approved yet, so this would be 


down the road at some point, but we'd like 


to at least get that out there for everybody 


to see. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So are these 


documents that will be approved soon or 


should be approved? 


MR. STIVER: I'm not quite sure. 


Maybe Stu could illuminate that. 


MR. HINNEFELD: I don't have the 


schedule with me, but I can provide it to 


the Board. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Maybe I 


can ask my second question, this is for 


Wanda and the Procedures Work Group. Is it 


your preference to do the tasking through 


the Work Group or here, and does that differ 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

based on the type of document that John's 


talked about? 


MEMBER MUNN: Actually, we can do 


either. My personal preference would be in 


Subcommittee, simply because we have a 


little more time to discuss it. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


MEMBER MUNN: And I think I've 


expressed most of the “yes, but” I have 


here. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


MEMBER MUNN: And other Members 


of the Subcommittee, of course, can weigh in 


on that extensively, much more in Committee. 


I also would appreciate having the 


opportunity to have the agency there --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


MEMBER MUNN: -- so that we can 


pass them back and forth. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'm just trying 


to think procedurally how to proceed here 


and your Subcommittee is meeting? 


MEMBER MUNN: July 31. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. So it's 


not that far off, so we could task there. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MEMBER MUNN: No, it isn't. Yes, 


we can do that very easily. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, okay. 


MEMBER MUNN: And I would be 


pleased to put that on the agenda. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. And then 


Stu would be able to respond on schedule. I 


think we should keep in mind sort of the 


overall potential scope in terms of cost and 


so forth, but I think we're, if I understand 


the overall scope of this document, I think 


we’re okay, so it's not going to be a 


problem. I don't think it's a question of 


trying to cut. 


MEMBER MUNN: No, certainly, if 


there are estimates, as John has given them 


to us today, are anywhere in the right 


ballpark, then certainly they're covered, 


given the budget we have for them to work 


with already. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Right. Okay. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: If you have 


time, and what do you need, given the charge 


to begin in order to complete them within 


the space? 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MR. STIVER: I'm not quite sure I 


understood your question. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: Well, I'm 


saying, we're budgeting for between now and 


December, you know --


MR. STIVER: You mean whether 


there would be carryovers? 


MEMBER ANDERSON: -- go forward, 


it's a, we don't have the time --


MR. STIVER: Yes. If today, 


everything were okayed right at this moment 


in time, there would probably be some 


carryover into the following year. Yes, 


there probably would be. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And just to 


clarify, the Site Profiles, we should try to 


do today. That wouldn't be the Procedures 


Subcommittee. 


MR. STIVER: Yes, the Site 


Profiles, in my mind, are the most critical 


as well. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. And I'm 


going to suggest that we start our break 


here now because the next table is long and 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

I'd rather not interrupt. 


MR. STIVER: If I could say 


something, it might save us some time. The 


next table, I think, this is the list of 


PERs that Kathy Behling puts together for 


the Procedures Subcommittee Meeting. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Right. 


MR. STIVER: And she went ahead 


and put together a new one because there 


were a couple of new PERs that came out. We 


them sorted by the number of cases to be reevaluated, the complexity, and the selection 


criteria, and the science involved, and then 


a cost estimate. 


And this is very complicated and 


we could probably spend the rest of the day 


talking about this. I just wanted to have 


this information in your hands, but I would 


believe that this might be best addressed in 


the upcoming Subcommittee Meeting rather 


than going through each one of these today. 


It might just be a little too --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I don't 


disagree with that, but I'd just like a 


chance for other people that may have looked 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

this over, that aren't in the Subcommittee, 


that may want to have some input. 


MR. STIVER: Okay. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I don't think 


you need to read through the whole table or 


anything, and we may not have any comments, 


but let's do that when we come back and then 


we'll finalize what we need. 


MR. STIVER: Okay. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I've got 


some other questions, more general 


questions, about this site, some of this 


tasking that I think we should --


MR. STIVER: Okay. Fair enough. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- talk about. 


Good. So we'll break and come back at 3:45, 


and then will do Titanium Alloy, and after 


that, we will go into Board work session 


again. 


 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 


matter went off the record at 3:16 p.m. and 


went back on the record at 3:51 p.m.) 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Our 


first order of business is Titanium. Jim 


Neton. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

DR. NETON: Good afternoon. I'm 


going to summarize the Evaluation Report for 


the Special Exposure Cohort petition for 


Titanium Alloys Manufacturing, also known as 


TAM by us. 


Overview of the petition. It was 


an 83.13 petition we received on July 28th, 


2011. About four months later, the petition 


was qualified for evaluation, and three 


months after that, the Evaluation Report was 


issued on February 14th, 2012. 


I thought I'd eliminate the 


suspense and state right up front that we 


believe we are not going to recommend an SEC 


Class for Titanium Alloy Manufacturing, and 


hopefully my presentation will provide some 


support for that conclusion. 


In the way of background 


information, Titanium Alloys Manufacturing 


is located Niagara Falls, New York, one of 


the number of so-called Niagara Frontier 


sites. We've dealt with a lot of sites from 


the Niagara Falls area. This is yet another 


one. 


It always amazes me when we do 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

these site, the variety of different 


activities that were performed by the 200 or 


so plus Atomic Weapons Employers, which is 


what Titanium Alloys was. 


 Essentially, they produced 


titanium metal that was used as pigment in 


the paint industry, was one of their big, 


big products, but they also did produce 


zirconium tetrachloride for the Atomic 


Energy Commission from 1950 through 1956, 


and I'm not sure what that was used for, but 


it was provided to various sites, including 


Fernald, Electro Met, and Y-12, I believe. 


And the waste products from the 


zirconium manufacturing process actually did 


end up at Lake Ontario Ordinance Works 


because it was AEC activities. But the 


zirconium that was made was not radioactive. 


It was just stable zirconium, and as such, 


that's not covered under the Act. 


The AEC activities that we do 


know about were twofold. There was one 


activity in 1955 and one activity in 1956. 


In 1955, TAM melted 70 pounds of 


contaminated scrap metal for an AEC 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

experiment that I'll talk about later, and 


that was a two-day duration project with a, 


we're estimating, one-day cleanup operation. 


In 1956, they reduced uranium 


compounds, that is, took various chemical 


forms of uranium and reduced them to uranium 


metal on a very small limited basis 


laboratory scale, actually in laboratory 


hoods, and that activity only covered two 


days of exposures, in July 10th and 11th of 


1956, using very small quantities, which 


I'll talk about later. 


So in total, as far as we can 


determine, there are really only five days 


of covered exposure associated with the 


Titanium Alloy Manufacturing facility. 


The covered period for TAM as an 


AWE was previously listed as 1950 through 


'56, but that was largely based on the 


zirconium material that I just talked about 


that was non-radioactive. Once NIOSH 


discovered this, we requested DOL review the 


basis for the covered period and, in fact, 


they agreed with our determination and 


adjusted the covered period to cover just 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

1955 and 1956. 


So all that zirconium work that 


was previously covered exposure is no longer 


that. So when the petitioner actually 


proposed the Class, they asked for the full 


covered period at the time, which was 1950 


through '56, subsequent to our discussions 


with DOL, the Class that we evaluated was 


all employees who worked in any area at TAM 


from January 1st, '55 through the end of 


December 31st, 1956, so just those two years 


was what we investigated. 


The petition basis is one of the 


bases that LaVon talked about earlier. They 


presented an affidavit indicating the lack 


of monitoring for any radiation exposures, 


which we agreed with. There was very 


limited amount of records available for 


airborne activity and surface contamination 


during 1956. 


And in fact, at the time we 


started our evaluation, we had nothing, no 


data to bound exposures that occurred in 


1955. In fact, we didn't really know what 


happened. We just know that there was a 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

memo that said that Mallinckrodt was 


instructed to send them some metal, 


contaminated metal. 


Sources of available information, 


TBD-6000 was used in this site and the only 


place that was used was in reconstruction of 


the external exposures I'll talk about 


later. We also had site research documents 


and the Site Research Database. 


I think there's about 70 or so 


documents, most of which were, sort of, 


descriptions of the site processes, nothing 


terribly useful, except there was some air 


sampling information for the 1956 operation. 


The DCAS and ORAU technical 


bulletins were also relied upon, most 


notably, TIB-6, which is the reconstruction 


of occupational medical exposures, or 


occupationally-derived medical exposures, 


was used. And we also had access to the 


case files in the OCAS or DCAS claims 


tracking system, NOCTS, where we had 14 


claims from this facility. 


That was what we had when we 


started. Now, we did pick up a couple 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

additional pieces of information during the 


SEC investigation. And the first of these, 


I think, is kind of interesting. 


I mentioned that, in 1955, there 


was a memo that said that the Health and 


Safety Laboratory, which we all know as HASL 


back then, the AEC's Health and Safety 


Laboratory, requested that Mallinckrodt 


Chemical Works ship 70 pounds of 


contaminated scrap metal to Titanium Alloy 


Manufacturing. 


Well, that kind of rang a bell in 


my head. I said, why would HASL be 


requesting material to be sent from 


Mallinckrodt to this facility? Well, it 


turns out there's some pretty good databases 


one can search on previous HASL work, and we 


ended up finding a reference that was 


published in the Journal of Nucleonics in 


1956 that described the experiment that was 


done with that contaminated metal at 


Titanium Alloy. 


And I'll talk a little bit about 


that later. It had a very good description 


of the experiment, the contamination levels, 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

the airborne samples, and such. We also 


discovered an AEC source material license, 


which was almost by happenstance. 


I happened to be in Albany 


looking for additional material for Linde 


and Bethlehem Steel, and I ran across an AEC 


source material license that was issued in 


1956 to Titanium Alloys that indicated that 


they were authorized to possess up to 100 


pounds of uranium, specifically, it was ore 


concentrates, so a pretty small amount of 


uranium as uranium goes. 


Previous dose reconstructions: I 


mentioned we have 14 claims in our 


possession, 12 of those are in the Class, 


which I'm presuming that the other two were 


probably outside that 1955-56, time frame 


and are no longer considered to be covered. 


We've done 12 dose 


reconstructions and we've, as I suggested 


earlier, zero personal monitoring for 


internal dosimetry or external; no film 


badges or bioassay results, but we do have 


air monitoring data. 


So the potential radiation 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

exposures during the 1955-56 period were to 


uranium itself. Just natural uranium. It 


wasn't depleted, it wasn't enriched. 


Although I did put in the slide, and I 


should have mentioned, that since this was 


done in the 1955-56 time period, it is 


possible that it could have been recycled 


uranium that was used that has very trace 


contaminant levels of plutonium, neptunium, 


you know, actinides. 


And so we have actually included 


a provision in the dose reconstructions for 


potential presence of recycled uranium. But 


both of these operations were experimental 


with limited quantities of material. I'll 


talk about that later. 


The external dose would have 


been, obviously, from photons and beta 


radiation from the uranium that was present, 


even though it was small. And as we know 


from past sites, uranium doesn't have a 


tremendous amount of gamma activity and 


there is some beta activity from some of the 


short-lived daughters, most notably 


protactinium-234m. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

And of course, there would have 


been internal dose from airborne 


radioactivity from working with the material 


and the surface contamination as a result of 


those work activities. 


So what is the source term that 


we're talking about here? Well, the 1955 


work, I mentioned, was the remelting of 


contaminated stainless steel and aluminum. 


It was shipped directly from Mallinckrodt to 


Titanium Alloy and it included 40 pounds of 


stainless steel, about a 1/4-inch thick of 


30 pounds of aluminum, and my recollection 


was they were cut into pieces, about 3-inch 


square pieces. 


HASL actually did a, and this was 


in that Nucleonics publication, did a very 


detailed survey of the surface 


contamination. The idea behind this, I 


should have mentioned, was that there was a 


lot of metals that had become contaminated 


in the AEC operations and they were looking 


for a way to clean it up so that it could be 


re-released. 


And the idea was, if you remelt 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

the contaminated metal, whether it's 


aluminum or stainless, you would purify it, 


in a sense, because the metal would melt and 


then you'd develop a slag topping, and then 


you could just scrape off the slag and you'd 


have some, essentially pretty clean material 


that could be reused and sold. 


So that was the idea behind this 


whole experiment. So they shipped the 


material there and because they were trying 


to quantify the purification process by 


remelting, they did very detailed surface 


contamination measurements on the metals 


itself. 


And we took those surface 


contamination values and concluded that the 


total mass of uranium that was embodied in 


these 70 pounds of material would have been 


about 90 grams of uranium total. That was 


all that was present during this operation. 


The surface contamination on the 


scrap varied, but the maximum value was 


approximately 27,000 dpm per 100 square 


centimeters. Now, that's for the 1955 two-


day operation. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

Now I want to talk a little bit 


about the 1956 operation that also 


encompassed two days. This operation took 


uranium compounds, including uranium 


tetrafluoride, uranium dioxide, and uranium 


hexafluoride, and it reduced them into 


uranium metal. 


This occurred over a two-day 


period in a very small laboratory. I forget 


the exact dimensions, but I want to say the 


laboratory was somewhere around probably an 


8-foot by 8-foot room. It was very small, 


with a hood, and this work was actually done 


in a hood in the laboratory. 


As I mentioned, the AEC license 


authorized TAM to produce up to 100 pounds, 


but from the experiments that we're looking 


at, there was nowhere near that amount of 


material involved in this operation. 


In fact, the air sample results 


that we have talk about sampling a condenser 


in a hood, or something like that, and there 


was 3 grams of material in the crucible at 


the time. So we're talking about very small 


levels, laboratory-scale levels, done in a 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

hood, gram quantities. 


So 1955 was the melting 


operation, '56 was the uranium reduction 


operation. Well, our approach to dose 


reconstruction is, we do have air sampling 


data available for both of those operations 


and we have surface contamination data from 


-- we have surface contamination data for 


both operations as well, albeit, somewhat 


limited, but these are also very limited 


operations. 


That would be our approach to 


reconstructing the internal exposures. As I 


mentioned earlier, we believe that TBD-6000 


can be used to estimate external dose from 


uranium. It's sort of a standard practice 


that we use. If you know how much uranium 


is present in a given location, it's easy to 


calculate the dose rate coming off of a 


certain quantity of uranium, and that's what 


we've done. 


Okay. Because we're relying 


solely on air sample data, and I think Dr. 


Melius had some early concerns, maybe, about 


the pedigree of the data used for this 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

analysis. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Actually, just 


for the record, my concern was the way it 


was written up in the report was it said it 


was peer-reviewed, therefore, the pedigree 


was good. 


DR. NETON: Yes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It just didn't 


have enough information. 


DR. NETON: That's what I meant 


to say. Our explanation of the pedigree --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, the 


explanation. 


DR. NETON: -- is more accurate. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'm not 


concerned about the pedigree as much as --


DR. NETON: So I'd thought I'd 


explain it a little better. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, no, that's 


why I sent the emails. 


DR. NETON: Okay. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So we could get 


it on the record. 


DR. NETON: As I mentioned, this 


1955 operation, the remelt, was sponsored by 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

HASL, who we know from past experience sort 


of set the standard for measurements in the 


AEC era. They operated with standard 


procedures and we've all seen those very 


standardized air sample sheets that document 


the flow rate, the detector efficiency, you 


know, the background, all the things that 


are needed to do a good quality measurement. 


So we're pretty certain that they 


used their standard methods. There's no 


reason to believe they would have used 


anything different, especially since this 


was published in a peer-reviewed journal on 


top of all that. 


As I mentioned, this was in 


Analytics, and again, the author of the 


article, Klevin, was the main author, his 


name has appeared on other air sampling 


programs, to my recollection, and again, 


they used the very standardized methods that 


were developed at HASL and adopted at a 


number of AWE facilities. 


So in my opinion, HASL sort of 


sets the bar for quality of measurements. 


So to do the intakes of uranium from the 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

scrap melting operation, we know that each 


type of scrap metal was melted in a separate 


crucible and the Nucleonics article also 


said that there was only natural ventilation 


in the work area. There was no fans or any 


forced ventilation. 


Of the air samples that were 


measured, all samples were reported to be 


less than 10 dpm per cubic meter based on 


the concentration, that should say two days 


not three days, in 1955, but they did say 


that there was a high value of 80 dpm per 


cubic meter measured. 


And it was actually what they 


would call a process sample, which was in 


the gas stream directly above the uranium 


that was being melted, which, presumably, no 


one would have their nose in there, but 


again, it's a process sample and that's the 


highest value that they recorded. 


So not knowing exactly where 


these sample were positioned to get the 10 


dpm per cubic meter, we have assumed that 


the workers, over the two-day period, 


breathed the 80 dpm per cubic meter process 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

sample value during those two days of 


operation. 


Now, there was, actually, the 


petitioner talked about a decontamination 


activity that went on, so we have one day of 


decontamination of the laboratory built into 


this dose reconstruction and we based that 


on the known 27,000 dpm per 100 square 


centimeter contamination on the scrap and 


applied a D&D re-suspension factor of 1 


times 10 to the minus 5th, which is taken 


out of TIB-70. 


That's a fairly standard value 


used for people that are doing sort of 


cleanup activities, sweeping and vacuuming, 


that sort of thing. And using those values, 


we ended up calculating a concentration of 


27 dpm per cubic meter for the third day of 


operations. 


So for the inhalation intakes 


during these three days, we have 80 dpm per 


cubic meter for day one and two of the 


melting, and then on the third day, when 


they cleaned it up, we have 27 dpm per cubic 


meter. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

That's how we did the inhalation. 


The ingestion intakes, we used the TIB-9 


approach, which is a re-suspension of 


material from the ground and the deposition 


of material on people's hands, and that sort 


of thing. It's a pretty standard approach 


that we've used in many, many dose 


reconstructions. 


Okay. Let's talk a little bit 


about the 1956 operation. We actually have 


the original air sampling sheets for this 


operation. There were 11 total samples 


taken over the two-day period, eight were in 


this analytical laboratory, in the hood, 


basically, in the hood right in front of the 


operation, three were taken in the melting 


furnace area where they actually reduced the 


uranium to uranium metal. 


These samples were not taken by 


HASL, but they were recorded on standard 


forms used by the National Lead of Ohio. 


There was some sort of relationship between 


National Lead and Titanium Alloys that I 


think they actually either were going to buy 


them or had purchased them. There was some 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

kind of a cooperative arrangement between 


them. 


Anyway, these are on these 


standard forms used by National Lead of Ohio 


and those are really almost exact images of 


the forms that were used by the Health and 


Safety Laboratory. Primarily, I think the 


reason is because a number of people that 


worked at the Health and Safety Laboratory 


ended up at Fernald at the National Lead 


plant, and they adopted the HASL approach. 


So, you know, these data sheets 


included a very good amount of information. 


The sample location, the type of the sample 


ground, the background count rate, detector 


efficiency volume, filter efficiency, all 


the stuff you need to know to reproduce the 


calculation of activity. 


And we know the alpha 


measurements were made using a scintillation 


counter. So the intakes form the uranium 


reduction activities are based on the air 


sample data that we had over that two-day 


period on July 10th and 11th. 


The highest reported value on 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

those air samples was 6 dpm per cubic meter. 


Now, I mentioned that we had all the 


parameters associated with those air 


samples, including the background count rate 


and the efficiency of the detectors, and we 


calculated what would be the minimum 


detectable activity of that measurement 


system using those data. 


And determined that the system 


itself couldn't detect an air concentration 


of less than 15 dpm per cubic meter. It's 


one thing to say it's 6, but is that a real 


number? And so we're saying that it could 


have been 6, but it could have been as high 


as 15 and not been correctly identified. 


So what we ended up doing was 


using the 15 dpm per cubic meter air sample 


calculated MDA and assumed that the workers 


breathed that 15 dpm over the two-day 


period. And the ingestion concentration was 


done the same way, using the standard TIB-9 


approach. 


Okay. That covers how we 


reconstructed the internal dose. As I 


mentioned, there was some potential for 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

external exposure, admittedly, pretty small, 


but we have to talk about it. And of 


course, this would have been the photons and 


beta radiation, and then our dose from 


required medical X-rays. 


So the photon doses were 


estimated using TBD-6000 Table 6.1 values. 


The smallest value we had on there was for 


exposure to a uranium slug, which is about a 


2 kilogram piece of uranium. 


And then continuous exposure at 


1-foot distance for all the days of the 


uranium work only ended up a little bit less 


than 3 millirem total exposure to external 


penetrating radiation. So that's what we 


would use in the dose reconstruction. 


And the shallow dose to the skin 


from the beta particles is presumed to be a 


factor of 10 times higher, and this is based 


on ratios of shallow skin dose to 


penetrating dose that we've seen at a number 


of facilities, and that's documented, also, 


in TBD-6000. 


We had no indication that medical 


X-rays were taken offsite. We don't know 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

even if they were required, but it's our 


practice to default to required medical X-


rays if we don't know. So we are assigning 


an annual medical X-ray during the 1955 and 


1956 period that would be included in the 


dose reconstruction. 


So that's how we're going to do 


the internal and external. You've seen this 


slide many times, the two-prong test, and 


the first one, is it feasible to estimate 


dose? And we have concluded in the 


Evaluation Report that we can do dose 


reconstructions, and therefore, we don't 


need to worry about the value and whether 


health endangered or not. 


So the feasibility of the dose 


reconstruction is: we believe that the 


process and the source term information 


provide sufficient data for us to estimate 


doses associated with the uranium work that 


was conducted over a five-day period at 


Titanium Alloys. 


Here's a chart that just 


essentially summarizes that, that we can 


reconstruct the internal dose from uranium, 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

external dose from beta, gamma, neutron, I 


didn't mention this, but neutron exposures 


from 90 grams of uranium is not going to be 


very much. It's not even worth calculating. 


And that we can also use TIB-6 to 


do the medical exposures. And that 


concludes my presentation. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Good. Okay. 


Thank you. Again, this is an SEC petition. 


I believe the petitioner is on the line. 


What we'll do procedurally is, if the Board 


Members have questions for Jim about what 


he's presented here, we'll ask them, then 


I'll ask the petitioner if they want to 


speak, and then we will come back and have 


any deliberations that we may want on how to 


handle this SEC. 


So, Gen, you have a question? 


MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes, Jim, when 


you talk about the uranium reduction and --


DR. NETON: Turn the microphone. 


MEMBER ROESSLER: Is it on? Do I 


need to get closer? Oh, that sounds better. 


Whoops, no it doesn't. Okay. In the 


uranium reduction activities, your 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

calculating doses or proposing for two days, 


but I'm wondering, what happened after they 


separated out the metal from this stuff, 


whatever we call it, slag or something, what 


happened to that material? 


Did it get disposed of somewhere 


or would there have been some residual 


period where there's contamination or 


anything left over there? Yes, what did 


they do with it? Thank you, Henry, where 


did it go? 


DR. NETON: We don't know. 


That's a good question. I did fail to 


mention that we have surface contamination 


values that were taken, in addition to the 


air sample measurements, that were very 


small. I mean, 20 dpm per 100 square 


centimeters around the furnace. 


There was one, I think -- the 


highest value that was measured was, I 


believe, 500 dpm per 100 square centimeters, 


which was on the wall of the furnace where 


the material was being heated. 


So we know the contamination 


levels in the laboratory itself were small, 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

around the furnace was small, I don't know 


what happened to the uranium metal itself. 


It was these gram quantities of material. 


That's a good question. 


MEMBER ROESSLER: Well, I have a 


similar question on Slide 16, again, this 


was when they were -- I think it was 16. 


Anyway, the other operation, again, I 


wondered, after their two days of work, was 


there any residual radioactivity? 


DR. NETON: Well, we know that 


there was a decontamination effort 


undertaken and we estimated it based on the 


highest value that was on the material, 


which was 27,000 dpm per 100 square 


centimeters, and assumed the workers during 


that one-day period breathed -- if you use a 


resuspension factor of 1 times 10 to the 


minus 5th, it comes out to 27 dpm per cubic 


meter for that one day, and then the 


material is cleaned up. 


MEMBER ROESSLER: Okay. That was 


the question, really. 


DR. NETON: Yes. 


MEMBER ROESSLER: You're assuming 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

that one day occurred fairly shortly after 


their two days of laboratory work. 


DR. NETON: Well, and again, this 


was a HASL operation. I think, you know, 


HASL was taking these air samples, they were 


there, they measured the surface 


contamination levels, you know, this was --


I wouldn't say they borrowed their furnace, 


but they went there and conducted an 


experiment using their furnace. 


So one could presume that HASL 


took all the contaminated material with 


them, but I don't have, you know, hard, 


factual evidence of that. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Other 


questions? Josie? 


MEMBER BEACH: Just a quick one. 


You have 14 claims, I saw. How many workers 


were at that facility? Do you know? 


DR. NETON: You know, I thought 


about that before I got up there and I don't 


know. That's a standard question that I 


should have been able to answer. I can't 


tell you. It was a fairly small site. It 


was a 30-acre site, but I don't know exactly 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the number of workers. Sorry. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Henry? 


MEMBER ANDERSON: I'm assuming 


that all of those were denied? 


DR. NETON: I don't know. I 


didn't look to see. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay. 


DR. NETON: These are going to 


have to be reworked anyways, or re-looked 


at, because, remember, the first time we did 


them there was a six-year covered exposure 


and now there's only a two-year covered 


exposure because the zirconium work is no 


longer included. 


It was '50 to '56 early on and 


now the DOL has determined that it's only 


'55 and '56. I know that the ones that were 


done before we determined this were given a 


six-year exposure. I don't know the 


proportion of ones that were denied, though. 


MEMBER LOCKEY: It is going to be 


less. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes. 


Interesting how they would have assigned 


when there were no measurements during those 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

six years, but, you know, that was --


DR. NETON: Well, we had the air 


sample data from 1956. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: Oh, so they 


would have assumed --


DR. NETON: I think they 


probably, I don't know this for a fact, but 


I would assume they probably went back and 


assumed it lasted for the entire duration. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Josie? 


MEMBER BEACH: What kind of 


information do you have on the air sample 


data? Do you have locations and placement, 


things like that? 


DR. NETON: Yes. The reduction 


operations were done in a hood and the air 


samples were taken outside of the hood 


itself. I mean, I think all of them were 


actually taken at the face of the hood. The 


ones that were taken in the reduction 


furnace area were just listed as in the area 


of the furnace. That was for the uranium 


reduction operation. 


We don't know where the location 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

was of the air samples for the remelt 


operation that HASL did, but we do know that 


the highest value they measured was the 80 


dpm in the actual gas stream above the 


crucible itself. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Brad. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: I was just 


wondering. You said that they melted down 


70 pounds of contaminated --


DR. NETON: Right. Well, in two 


separate batches. One day they did the 


aluminum, one day they did the stainless 


steel. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: So you're saying 


that they were in small 3-inch square 


pieces, did they cut it? Do you know how 


the process was done there? Did they cut it 


up? 


DR. NETON: I don't believe they 


cut it there. I'd have to go back and look, 


but I think Mallinckrodt was asked to cut it 


in 3-inch squares. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. 


DR. NETON: That's my 


recollection. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And further 


Board questions for Jim? Okay. If the 


petitioner is on the line and wishes to make 


any statements, you're welcome to. Not 


required to, but this is your opportunity. 


Okay. I'm assuming not. So what is your 


preference in terms of how we should handle 


this? Wanda? 


MEMBER MUNN: Was Brad going to 


say something? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, but your 


card is up, Brad. 


MEMBER MUNN: Okay. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: He's having 


extended thoughts. 


MEMBER MUNN: I'm assuming you're 


open for a motion? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, a motion 


or what you would suggest for a motion. I 


think the question is, do people feel they 


would need further information before taking 


any action on this? And I think that is the 


sort of outstanding issue. 


I think we all know what the 


recommended motion would be, but would you 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

feel more comfortable doing it or would you 


rather not do that? 


MEMBER MUNN: It's hard to 


imagine that one could obtain much more 


information on such a small source term and 


its potential effects, other than what we 


have already known or what we know about 


uranium and all of its progeny. And given 


the certainty of the amount of material 


involved, it's hard to see how we could get 


more information. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I tend to agree 


with you, Wanda. Dave? 


MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Since the 


petitioner wasn't here, I think the central 


issue is that you only have three days of 


exposure. The petitioner wasn't here to 


challenge that and I wondered, did you ever 


speak to either the petitioner or some other 


workers at the site? 


MR. KINMAN: This is Josh Kinman, 


I did speak to the petitioner on several 


occasions and he had no interest in 


participating at all in this meeting today. 


He was also ill for a couple of months, but 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the last time I spoke to him it was a very 


brief conversation where he expressed 


absolutely no interest in participating. 


MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But the 


petitioner did have the opportunity. He 


submitted the petition, which qualified. So 


there was information. I think your 


question is: what interaction was there 


after that? 


DR. NETON: I would say we did 


also try to contact or identify other people 


that could have been available to interview 


and we didn't have any luck. We couldn't 


find anyone to talk to. 


MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes, so 


there's nothing on the record challenging 


that and a lot of evidence supporting it. 


DR. NETON: Right. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And how about 


from the claims? 


DR. NETON: There's nothing in 


the claims that added any additional 


information to that effect. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

DR. NETON: I mean, there were 


some claims, I think, that talked about 


working with the uranium, but there's 


nothing substantive in there that we could 


use. I was going to mention also, there is 


no residual contamination period for this 


facility. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Right. 


MR. KINMAN: I just wanted to add 


something. We did approach the petitioner 


on a couple of occasions and he knew of no 


one. I mean, he was an employee and he knew 


of no one who was still alive for us to even 


contact, as Jim said. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, that's the 


other. Well, there may be claims, but they 


may be survivor claims. Yes. 


MS. LIN: I also just want to 


provide some clarification in terms of 


what's a regulatory requirement for a 


petitioner to participate in this process, 


particularly during the Board's deliberative 


discussion. And I know we're two new Board 


Members here, so the petitioner, DCAS is 


required to provide the Evaluation Report to 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

the petitioner and then the Board is 


required to provide an opportunity for the 


petitioner to participate. 


Their participation during the 


deliberative process is not mandatory and 


this would not be the only forum in which 


they could challenge any agency finding. 


83, I think, 17, 18, the petitioner would 


have the opportunity to file an 


administrative review process request. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But normally 


what we do, Dave, is we actually try to, the 


way the schedule is set up, we try to 


accommodate times when the petitioners would 


be available and Josh makes, you know, lots 


of effort to contact them, and so forth, as 


we go through this process, and so forth. 


Loretta and then Paul. 


MEMBER VALERIO: The petitioner 


requested the covered years 1950 through 


1956 and the Class evaluated by NIOSH states 


that the covered period was 1955 through 


1956, so there was a change somewhere in 


there. I'm wondering, when they're 


processing these claims, are the employees 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

claiming additional employment all the way 


back to 1950 and have those time frames been 


verified through DOE? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: They may have 


been. Jim, you want to --


DR. NETON: I'm certain 


Department of Labor would have verified the 


employment during that original covered 


period, which was 1950 to 1956. Well, 


during our evaluation process, we identified 


that only 1955 and 1956 should be covered 


exposure because the earlier work was not 


radioactive -- it was an AEC contract, but 


it did not involve work with radioactive 


material. It was stable zirconium that they 


provided to AEC. 


So the covered period has been 


changed from '50 to '56, to '55 and '56 


only. So it's possible that there are some 


people that had covered exposure that are no 


longer covered on this program. Well, we 


have to go through and sort that no matter 


what happens to this petition because now 


there's a different covered period. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Paul. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

MEMBER ZIEMER: It appears that 


the actual time of usage was extremely 


short, like, two days in one case and I 


don't recall --


MEMBER MUNN: A month and three 


days. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, so is there 


any way a person could accumulate 250 days 


of exposure in any event? You'd have to 


postulate something else going on the rest 


of the time. I know you have the two-year 


span, but it's not clear to me that the 


material was actually there during all that 


period. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It doesn't 


matter, actually. It's the covered period 


that determines it and so unless they went 


back and changed the covered period to the 


three days and the two days or whatever, and 


I'm not even sure there's enough information 


to be that specific. 


I mean, you may reduce it, but 


this has come up before, at that Texas City 


site or there's one or two sites where it's 


come up, where, even though the campaign, or 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

whatever was a shorter period, the covered 


period ended up being longer than the actual 


use of materials at that site, partly 


because of the uncertainty about when 


certain things occurred. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, but we know 


the actual days in this case. 


DR. NETON: Actually, maybe I 


wasn't clear. We know the actual days for 


1956: July 10th and 11th. 1955, we know it 


happened in 1955 over a two-day period, but 


the Nucleonics publication by the Health and 


Safety Laboratory was not specific as to 


exactly what dates. We just know it was two 


days within 1955. 


MR. KATZ: Paul, if I understand 


your implication, I think the issue is: you 


can add a Class for any short duration, 


because they can combine their employment 


from one site with employment from another 


site --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's the 


other part, yes. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Oh, I understand 


that. Sure. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Wanda. 


MEMBER MUNN: I recommend that we 


accept the NIOSH recommendation that the 


proposed evaluated SEC Class covering all 


employees who worked in any area or building 


at Titanium Alloys Manufacturing from 


January 1, 1955 through December 31, 1956, 


not be accepted. 


MEMBER POSTON: I second. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Any 


further discussion? Ted. 


 MR. KATZ: Anderson? 


 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes. 


 MR. KATZ: Beach? 


 MEMBER BEACH: Yes. 


 MR. KATZ: Clawson? 


 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes. 


 MR. KATZ: Field? 


MEMBER FIELD: Ted, I just want to 


make sure I'm hearing it correctly, was the 


vote to deny the petition? 


MEMBER MUNN: The vote is to deny 


the petition. 


MEMBER FIELD: Okay. Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Just checking. Gibson, 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

are you on the line? Absent. I’ll collect 


that one later. Griffon is absent. 


Kotelchuck? 


 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Lemen, are you on the 


line? Absent. Lockey? 


 MEMBER LOCKEY: Yes. 


 MR. KATZ: Melius? 


 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


 MR. KATZ: Munn? 


 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. 


 MR. KATZ: Poston? 


 MEMBER POSTON: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Richardson is absent. 


Roessler? 


 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes. 


 MR. KATZ: Schofield? 


 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes. 


 MR. KATZ: Valerio? 


 MEMBER VALERIO: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: And Ziemer? 


 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: And it's unanimous in 


favor. The motion passes and I'll collect 


the absentee votes after this meeting. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. We are 


now going back to the SC&A proposal and if I 


could find it we'd -- here we go. 


MR. KATZ: I think Lockey is 


conflicted for WR Grace, is that correct, 


Jenny? 


MS. LIN: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Yes, so you can stay 


at the table because we're discussing four 


sites, just remain inactive on that one. 


MR. STIVER: Ready to proceed? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, we're 


ready to proceed, but I think the assignment 


was that anybody have questions or issues on 


the list of Program Evaluation Reports, 


Table 7. We weren't going to have John go 


through them individually, but if you had 


questions. I think, if not, we were 


intending to refer to these to the 


Procedures Subcommittee for assignment. 


MEMBER MUNN: I'd like to ask a 


question of John. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You certainly 


may. 


MEMBER MUNN: Thank you so much. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

MR. STIVER: Ask away. 


MEMBER MUNN: John, are you 


proposing that we assign all of these to 


SC&A for review? It seems to me that 


there's a lot of PERs here, and my 


preference is to make sure that we cover all 


of those issues that have either a high or 


medium science involvement, because it 


appears very obvious to me that those are 


the most potentially contentious items in 


the PERs. 


I guess I'm a little concerned 


about the number of items that we have shown 


here and if you're proposing that we task 


all of these to review, than I'll have to 


ask the Subcommittee to think about that 


more and to get into it more deeply before 


the meeting. 


MR. STIVER: Actually, that was a 


comprehensive list of all 35 PERs, 14 of 


those have been previously assigned. I 


believe there's only one outstanding, and 


that's, I believe, for TIB-29 or PER-29. 14 


and 17 have been delivered and so it wasn't 


my intent to have all of those assigned. It 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

was just to provide the list of what is 


available. 


MEMBER MUNN: Good. 


MR. STIVER: The intent of being 


able to go through it and pick those that we 


felt were the most promising or the most 


urgent and hit those first. 


MEMBER MUNN: I would request 


that you clarify, for us on the 


Subcommittee, which ones have definitely 


already been assigned. Not now, but before 


we leave we'll need to know which ones you 


have. 


MR. STIVER: Okay. I actually 


drew this table from that comprehensive 


list. 


MEMBER MUNN: Okay. 


MR. STIVER: And I believe I 


provided it for the April Subcommittee 


meeting. 


MEMBER MUNN: All right. 


MR. STIVER: So you should 


already have it. I can resend it to you, 


though, if you need it. 


MEMBER MUNN: It might be wise to 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

resend it. 


MR. STIVER: Okay. I will. 


MEMBER MUNN: Thank you. 


MR. STIVER: There was one other 


thing Josie mentioned, she was interested in 


seeing the statistics on the extrusion plan, 


the RMI, and so I went ahead and sent her a 


previous version of the document that has 


that information in it, but I kind of 


dithered on whether to include it in the 


Table 2 that I sent out to all of you, 


mainly because there were only 22 claims. 


But I felt it was kind of an 


important site and the Site Profile has been 


around since 2007. It has not been 


reviewed. It's the original rev 0. There's 


been no worker outreach, maybe because there 


were so few workers available. I don't know 


at this point. 


But the site operated from '62, 


during the AEC era, the DOE period, ‘62 up 


through '91, and then is still operating 


today. The residual period covers all the 


way up to today. And it was kind of 


important because they took the uranium 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

product from Fernald and Weldon Spring, and 


then did extrusions and forgings and so 


forth, to create different type of fuel 


elements, which were then sent to the N 


reactor in Savannah River, for the most 


part. 


But they also handled, literally, 


tens of thousands of metric tons of the 


recycled uranium that came out of Fernald 


and some of you, Dr. Ziemer in particular, 


realize that that was an intense topic of 


discussion in the Fernald SEC for several 


meetings. 


And in looking at the TBD, a lot 


of the same problems that we identified with 


Fernald would be applicable to this with how 


they're treating the constituents in the 


recycled uranium that was sent there. So 


for those reasons, I thought it might be 


worth looking into. 


So I guess it was kind of a 


judgment call based on the number of claims, 


but it's for your consideration if you'd 


like to, I guess, look at that, we certainly 


can. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAIRMAN MELIUS: If I understood 


you right, John, wouldn't that be better to 


wait till Fernald has been completed, we're 


still working on that, and whether NIOSH 


might be changing, revising that report, 


Site Profile, based on discussions at 


Fernald? 


MR. STIVER: Yes, that is true. 


I believe they are in the process of 


revising the guidance based on our --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


MR. STIVER: That would have been 


back in February when it was finally sorted 


out. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, okay. 


MR. STIVER: So, yes, that might 


be better to wait until that's all taken 


care of. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: John Poston, I 


think you had a question also. 


MEMBER POSTON: Yes. John, 


before I can decide what we're going to do 


here, I need to understand a little bit 


better. And I want to you a question, but I 


want to also give you my rationale. My 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

favorite subject, Chapman Valve, we laid 


that to rest some time ago, I thought, but 


you have it on the list. 


And if I did my math correctly, 


the effort is a little bit south of 80 


hours, which is basically two full weeks of 


effort for ten cases. And I was wondering, 


exactly what are you proposing to do with 


something like this? I mean, you've got it 


rated as low and the science is medium. 


You know, I'm trying to 


understand what all this means and as far as 


I thought, we buried that one a long time 


ago. 


MR. STIVER: Unfortunately, I 


can't really give you the details on that. 


I had Kathy Behling pull this list for me. 


I can't give you chapter and verse on each 


and every one of them, but I can certainly 


look into it and report back to you. 


MEMBER POSTON: Well, the same 


thing, I mean, if you go up and down the 


list, some of them are rated low/low. 


MR. STIVER: Yes. 


MEMBER POSTON: And so the 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

question is, if they're low significance, 


why do we even want to bother with them? 


I'm not a penny-pincher, but, you know, we 


have a limited amount of money and it seems 


to me we have to focus on the most important 


things. 


MR. STIVER: Yes, I agree. 


That's kind of the same question that Wanda 


brought up, which is why we look at these in 


the Procedures Meeting. This is just kind 


of a comprehensive list of what's out there, 


rated according to the selection criteria. 


Then what we would typically do, 


we go through each one and look at it in 


detail and decide whether it was worth 


pursuing. 


MEMBER MUNN: Well, and of 


course, the real purpose in these PERs is to 


assess whether NIOSH's evaluation was 


appropriate. And we've already passed on 


that in the Board, in many cases. But I 


think this is more a procedural activity 


than a scientific activity. 


But I was taking the position 


that, if the science and technology issues 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

were of large enough importance, then it 


might be worthy of the Subcommittee's time 


to have another look at how well that 


proceeded. Not the end result, you know, 


we're not concerned with the result anymore, 


we have the result, but we're looking at the 


process and whether it was appropriate. 


MEMBER POSTON: Well, again, I'm 


trying to understand, are you suggesting 


that your Working Group would look at these 


as opposed to us tasking SC&A to do this? 


MEMBER MUNN: No. I'm suggesting 


that SC&A would look at what had been done 


and the PER would be evaluated for its 


appropriateness in the Subcommittee. SC&A 


would bring their evaluation of what had 


transpired to the Subcommittee for a rubber 


stamp or for disagreement, as the case may 


be. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But there's 


also a selection process at the Subcommittee 


in terms of making the assignments. 


MEMBER MUNN: Yes. 


MEMBER POSTON: I would buy that. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. That, I 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

think -- yes. I have, sort of, some other 


questions that aren't related to these 


tables, but in terms of how they can affect 


our decision. One is, I think we've got 


updates from NIOSH on other documents coming 


out. 


We've got also updates from NIOSH 


on at least expected things we have to cover 


at the September meeting, one of which 


includes at least one, I think, potentially 


large SEC 83.13 at Rock Flats that, 


depending on NIOSH's Evaluation Report, you 


know, could engender, I think, a 


considerable amount of further work that 


would build on what you've done already 


there. 


I think, if my understanding is 


correct, that for all the SEC evaluations 


that are currently underway, you've got 


those covered in your budget already, 


including revisions, new reports, and --


MR. STIVER: Yes, the ongoing 


SECs are already factored in. That first 


table kind of had our estimates of, you 


know, what it would take to continue that 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

-- 

 

 

 

 

work or complete it. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Right. 


MR. KATZ: Yes, I mean, it's a 


little bit -- I mean, for some of the sites, 


I mean, even though, sort of, what's already 


underway is covered in the budget, but 


there's a lot that continues on SRS and 


others where that budget will grow all on 


its own without there being any new tasking. 


I mean, it's worked this way every year. 


MR. STIVER: Right, I probably 


should have clarified that in Table 1. 


That's work that has been authorized to date 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Right. 


MR. STIVER: -- at this point. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So we've tasked 


some here today, or yesterday also, there’s 


some new work at Hanford, some new work at 


Mound, I believe, and some work at GSI, so 


those will take -- and I don't think any of 


them were very large projects, but they 


would take up some amount of funding. 


We also have, I think, a report 


on some additional reports that will be 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

coming out around September on SRS and LANL 


around that time, that could very well be 


some additional tasking from the Work Groups 


on those. I think we already implied those 


and so forth. 


And then another category I just 


want to make sure we've covered, I don't 


think it's much of an issue for this year 


for SC&A, is the ten-year issues. So I 


could very well, for example, see, on the 


sufficient accuracy issue, some tasking to 


SC&A, but that wouldn't be for a while, I 


don't think. I don’t think any others --


Worker Evaluation, is there anything? 


MEMBER BEACH: Worker Outreach? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Worker 


Outreach, excuse me, yes. So I think we 


need to keep those in mind as we're, you 


know, assigning, because I think we're okay 


in terms of budget, but I think when we talk 


about sort of expanding additional Site 


Profiles and so forth, I think that we have 


a little bit of hesitation there. 


At the same time, I think, if we 


know we're going to have to assign it, and 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

we have funding this year, let's do it, 


because you never know what's going to come 


up next year --


MR. STIVER: Right. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- with this 


process. So I think what we would do now 


is, I think we need to decide on the Site 


Profiles. I think Wanda's Procedures Work 


Group then would essentially handle the 


others going forward. I think we just keep 


an eye, you know, within budget and so 


forth. 


And if there's some uncertainty 


or whatever, we can further task at our 


August call, our September meeting and 


there's still time for some work within this 


fiscal year for the contracts. Does anybody 


else have any other concerns or 


considerations before we --


MEMBER POSTON: Well, I don't 


have a concern, but I want to make it clear 


where I'm coming from. You know, there is 


such a think as deferred maintenance and we 


have these people coming before us every 


time we meet talking about how long it takes 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

us to do things. 


And I just don't see the value of 


going back and cleaning up some bits and 


pieces of some of the Work Group things that 


have happened in the past as opposed to 


putting that effort into doing dose 


reconstructions and doing the kinds of 


things that the people, these petitioners, 


need to have done. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


MEMBER POSTON: So that's where 


I'm coming from. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, and 


actually, you remind me of another point is 


that, we also have talked with our 


discussions yesterday with the dose 


reconstruction review issue, which I think 


should be a high priority. 


That's one of the things we're 


tasked for in the legislation and we're 


talking about some further work there and 


some possible changes there that could 


engender additional work within this year 


for them. 


Now, the individual dose 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

reconstruction reviews, you know, SC&A has 


budgeted for in this proposal before us, but 


agree, John, I think we, keeping the 


priorities in mind, and so forth, at the 


same time, to the extent we can catch up and 


are able to catch up with stuff that may not 


have been as high a priority, but still 


needs to be accomplished, we should do. 


MEMBER POSTON: Of course. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. So let's 


go back to the Site Profile list, which is 


Table 2. So I think we need a motion on 


that. 


MEMBER BEACH: I'll make a motion 


that we task SC&A to review O-52 and O-43. 


MR. KATZ: Let's do them one at a 


time. 


MEMBER BEACH: Okay. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: One at a time. 


MEMBER BEACH: So we'll start 


with O-52, the Pacific Proving Ground. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Do I have a 


second to that? 


MEMBER CLAWSON: Second it. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Second. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We'll give Brad this one. Any discussion? 


If not, all in favor say aye. 


 (Chorus of ayes.) 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Opposed? 


Abstained? 


 (No response.) 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Another 


motion. 


MEMBER BEACH: I'll make a motion 


to task SC&A with O-43, WR Grace & Co. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Second? Paul. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. 


MR. KATZ: This is a voice vote, 


but Jim Lockey will be recused from this. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. All in 


favor say aye. 


 (Chorus of ayes.) 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And anybody 


opposed? Anybody abstaining? 


 (No response.) 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And Jim is 


recused. Okay. Yes, Paul? 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Could I ask one 


question, on the Pacific Proving Grounds 


review, although we have an SEC there, 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

right? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Correct. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: For the internal. 


MR. STIVER: Yes, there's an SEC 


for the entire period. We have above ground 


testing for internal dose only. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. I'm trying 


to get a feel for -- the document you're 


reviewing, though, covers everything. 


MR. STIVER: Basically, there's 


only one paragraph about -- it was written 


after the SEC. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Oh, it was 


written after, okay. 


MR. STIVER: Yes. So there's 


just a short paragraph about not being able 


to reconstruct internal dose. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. 


MR. STIVER: The rest of it is 


all about --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's why it's 


so short; 18 pages. 


MR. STIVER: It's like an 


external dose subset pulled out. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And Battelle 


we're deferring, right. Yes. Okay. 


MR. STIVER: And I guess if you 


guys wanted to consider RMI, that would be ­

-


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'm hesitant 


until we have -- I'd like some input from 


NIOSH on that. 


MR. STIVER: Okay. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Certainly 


willing to consider that or the others at a 


later meeting, either the August meeting or 


the September meeting, but I'd like to --


MR. STIVER: Okay. That's fair 


enough. We can look at that later. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. And 


we'll work between now and the September 


meeting, we've got the Procedures 


Subcommittee, and try to get this all -- you 


know, what needs to be done in that time 


frame to the extent that we can. Now, 


obviously --


MR. STIVER: Right. Obviously, 


things come up. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, things 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

come up, but we've got a number of -- the DR 


Subcommittee, the Procedures Subcommittee, 


will be meeting by September. I think Rocky 


Flats will be clarified. So I think we'll 


have a better -- and then we'll have a bunch 


of reports coming out around September and 


SEC Evaluation, White Papers, that we'll be 


able to handle also. 


MR. STIVER: Okay. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Good. 


MR. STIVER: Thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Keep us 


informed on budget-wise and so forth. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: One more question 


if I might. John, the number of PERs that 


you've already done is what again? I think 


you told us, but --


MR. STIVER: We've completed 13 


of the 14 assigned PERs. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Thirteen, and 


those are other than are listed here or are 


included? 


MR. STIVER: Those are not. 


They're in a different list. It's in a 


separate table. I can provide that to you 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

if you'd like. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay, yes. I was 


trying to get a feel for whether or not the 


fact that so many of these have lows on them 


are because they're left over from when we 


picked out the high. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I don't think 


we've done that as a group for a while. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. Well, just 


wondering. 


MR. STIVER: Yes, I believe the 


last time that was done was back in 2010. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, the 


Subcommittee will be looking at that. 


MEMBER MUNN: We’ll organize it 


better. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Good. 


And I'm saying, if you could circulate that, 


I think you mentioned it was an April 


document that had been sent to the --


MR. STIVER: I'll go ahead and 


circulate it to the entire Board. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: To the whole 


Board, so we all have it. 


MR. STIVER: Okay. All right. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Just for 


informational purposes, it would be helpful. 


Good. Thank you very much, John. 


MR. STIVER: You're welcome. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. That's 


about it for now. Okay. We are scheduled 


for public comment at 6 o'clock, so if 


people could be back here maybe a little bit 


earlier, ten of, five of. There's at least 


one person I know that's going to call in by 


phone. 


MR. KATZ: Two people, or there's 


a letter that may come that someone wants me 


to read. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 


MR. KATZ: And one person signed 


outside. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Anybody 


in the room want to make a comment? Okay. 


6:00, maybe a little bit before, we'll get 


organized and do that. Thank you. See you 


all then. 


 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 


matter went off the record at 4:54 p.m. and 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

resumed at 5:59 p.m.) 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. If you 


could get seated, we'll get started here. I 


have a few people signed up, but before we 


get started, Ted will give the instructions 


for the public comment. 


MR. KATZ: Right. I'm not sure I 


need to give them, because everyone signed 


up is well-acquainted with the redaction 


policy, so I'll just say it very briefly, 


which is, everything that people say on the 


record will be recorded, transcribed, and 


made available to the public, everything 


they say about their private lives, that'll 


all be for public consumption in the 


transcript for this meeting. 


And the only exception, though, 


is, anything they talk about about another 


person, that information will be redacted 


sufficiently to protect the third party's 


privacy. Thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. And the 


order I'm going to do it in. We have, as of 


now, two people signed up here. I have at 


least one person signed up on the phone and 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

then we have one person who submitted a 


letter, a statement to be read into the 


record, which we will do. 


So I'm going to start with the 


two people here, do them, and then we will 


go to the phone, and then finish up with the 


letter into the record. And, Andrew, if you 


could introduce yourself. 


MR. EVASKOVICH: My name is 


Andrew Evaskovich. I'm the LANL petitioner. 


I just wanted to say thank you to the Board 


for coming out here again. I'm really 


grateful. I've had the opportunity to talk 


to some of you and the conversations have 


been enlightening. 


And they've well reaffirmed my 


faith in the process because I was getting a 


little frustrated there for a while, as far 


as what was happening with the petition and 


I kind of felt I'm at the end of my 


resources as far as arguing it anymore. 


And I don't think they have to do 


that much more work on it, so I'm grateful 


for that. I'm grateful for the questions 


that were asked yesterday, because I think 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

it clarified the direction that we're going 


to go with it and I'm grateful for the 


opportunity to talk to Stu and other Members 


of NIOSH as well, and the work that they've 


done on the petition. 


So basically, I'm just saying 


thank you very much. 


MR. KATZ: Thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, thank 


you. And again, as we said, just to thank 


everybody who came and provided information. 


I thought it was useful, particularly 


workers and so forth, and everybody 


involved, because I think it has helped also 


clarify a number of issues on that. Joni 


Arends. Thank you and welcome back. 


MS. ARENDS: Hi. Good evening, 


Mr. Chair and Members of the Board. My name 


is Joni Arends and I'm the Executive 


Director of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear 


Safety. I provided comments to the Board 


last evening and what I wanted to do tonight 


is, I brought disks with the documents. 


And so what I'd like to do is 


read my statement, if I may. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's fine. 


MS. ARENDS: So our concerns, 


among others, embrace the occupational and 


public health and safety issues related to 


nuclear weapons work done at Los Alamos 


National Laboratory. As noted in our public 


comments last night, CCNS fully supports the 


Special Exposure Cohort petition, Andrew’s 


petition for the LANL workers. 


We have monitored the progress of 


the SEC petition since it was first filed 


and are concerned about the lengthy delay in 


the Board making a decision. And maybe 


there's been some resolution, but I wasn't 


here earlier today. 


CCNS knows that NIOSH does not 


have the necessary information and data to 


conduct a dose reconstruction. On this CD, 


CCNS has provided reports and documents from 


the U.S. District Court, from LANL, and from 


the New Mexico Environment Department to 


support our position that the Department of 


Energy, LANL, nor the New Mexico Environment 


Department have the data to provide to 


NIOSH. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

And if there is data, there are a 


host of quality control and quality 


assurance problems as documented below. So 


in folder number 1 on this disk we focus on 


air. And in subfolder number 1 we have the 


U.S. District Court for the District of New 


Mexico, Judge Mechem's April 2nd, 1996 


memorandum, opinion, and order in the Clean 


Air Act NESHAP case, which was CCNS v. 


Department of Energy. 


In Paragraph 14 on Page 7 it 


says, quote, "By mid-1995, however, 31 of 


the 33 radionuclide-emitting stacks and 


vents were still out of compliance with 40 


CFR 61 Subpart H." End of quote. 


In subfolder 2 we have the 


beryllium air emissions issue. This folder 


includes recent correspondence between the 


New Mexico Environment Department Air 


Quality Bureau and CCNS regarding the lack 


of reporting of beryllium emissions by LANL 


to NMED under the Title V Air Quality permit 


for the Sigma facility, which is at TA3. 


In folder number 2 we have 


information about groundwater. And in 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

subfolder 1, we have the whole issue with 


the neptunium reporting in groundwater. 


This folder addresses the reported neptunium 


in drinking water in Santa Fe's Buckman Well 


Field. 


The Buckman Well Field provides 


about 40 percent of Santa Fe's drinking 


water and the total population is about 


80,000 people. This subfolder includes 


three folders, one contains the DOE draft 


and final site-wide environmental impact 


statements for LANL in 2007 and 2008. 


The other contains a CCNS 


response to a letter from LANL's Andrew 


Phelps, who was in charge of the 


environmental management program, along with 


four attachments where we go into detail 


about the neptunium reporting. 


Subfolder number 2 includes 


excerpts from the National Academy of 


Sciences in the 2007 plans and practices for 


groundwater protection at LANL about the 


neptunium reporting issue that we brought 


forward and they referenced in their final 


report. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

And folder number 3 talks about 


the soils, and this addresses the issue of 


dioxins and furans in the soils at TA16, the 


open burn facilities at TA16, 388, and 399. 


This folder contains LANL's recent sampling 


plan submitted to NMED for approval. 


And what it does is: it documents 


the concern about the emissions, the 


creation of dioxins and furans, and how the 


dioxins and furans have been found at levels 


above the standards in the area surrounding 


the burn facilities, but it also doesn't go 


far away from the burn sites. 


It doesn't follow the downward or 


the northeastern pathway for the air 


emissions. Thank you in advance for your 


time to review these documents, and again, 


we support the petition for the LANL SEC. 


So I have two copies. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. And 


thank you very much for providing these and 


for making the effort to get these to us and 


we will follow up. One of our Members lost 


his computer. It failed when he turned it 


on out here, so we're experienced with that, 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

unfortunately. 


I'd now like to turn to the 


phone. Antoinette Bonsignore, I believe 


you're on the phone? 


MS. BONSIGNORE: Yes. Can you 


hear me? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I can. 


MS. BONSIGNORE: Okay. Thank 


you. Good evening, Dr. Melius, and Members 


of the Advisory Board. I want to thank you 


on behalf of the Linde workers and their 


families for this opportunity to address the 


Board this evening. 


I'd also like to thank the Linde 


Work Group for their efforts during this 


post-SEC evaluation process. My statement 


this evening is in response to the 


recommendation that will be offered tomorrow 


to the Board by DCAS and the Linde Work 


Group regarding the Linde Site Profile, 


dealing directly with the Linde underground 


tunnel system and the impact that 


recommendation will have upon the ability of 


DCAS to re-evaluate and re-dose previously 


denied individual dose reconstruction claims 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

in a claimant-favorable manner. 


Due to time constraints and my 


inability to address the Board tomorrow, I 


have outlined additional specifics and 


information regarding my response for the 


Board's further review in a written 


statement that I will provide to Mr. Katz. 


Specifically, I wish to address 


whether DCAS and the Linde Work Group have 


provided a claimant-favorable conclusion 


with respect to the existence of a specific 


section of the Linde underground tunnel 


system that both DCAS and the Linde Work 


Group now allege was constructed in 1957. 


DCAS has taken over two years to 


verify a theory regarding the existence of 


the underground tunnels and the amount of 


time workers may have spent in those 


tunnels. In the very outset, DCAS has 


expressed skepticism that Linde workers 


spent any significant amount of time in 


these tunnels that would result in exposure 


consequences. 


In fact, not too long ago, DCAS's 


health physicist refused to even believe 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

that any workers ever used these tunnels, 


despite being provided evidence of that fact 


from worker interviews conducted by SC&A in 


January of 2006. 


Notably, it was not until the 


most recent and fifth revision of the Linde 


Site Profile that the tunnels were ever 


referenced by DCAS. Unfortunately, the 


post-SEC Site Profile evaluation process has 


presented the same problems that workers 


have encountered since the filing of the 


initial Linde SEC petitions in March of 


2008. 


When ambiguity arises and DCAS is 


presented with circumstantial evidence, the 


predisposition among the health physicists 


that are making these final Site Profile 


decisions seems insulated from claimant-


favorable policy. 


DCAS is contending that the 


tunnels running near the uranium ore 


processing buildings did not exist during 


the operational time period at Linde, which 


officially ended on December 31st, 1953. 


There exists a great deal of ambiguity and 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

uncertainty about this issue. 


Unless DCAS can provide 


definitive proof that these tunnels did not 


exist during the operational time period, 


such uncertainty should be resolved in favor 


of the sickened workers. Congress intended 


for EEOICPA to be administered in a 


claimant-favorable manner. 


Moreover, EEOICPA was enacted 


precisely because the lack of definitive 


data and information about these facilities 


oftentimes makes it next to impossible to 


accurately understand working conditions and 


site-specific information that is more than 


60 years old. 


Sickened Linde workers and their 


families waited for many years for the final 


disposition of their two SEC petitions, but 


also for a complete and accurate Site 


Profile that will provide the basis for the 


fair evaluation of individual claims for 


those workers that do not meet the SEC 


requirements. 


DCAS has been using an incomplete 


and inaccurate Site Profile to evaluate 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

individual claims for Linde since 2005. 


Moreover, even though DCAS was aware of the 


existence of the tunnel system since January 


of 2006, they've refused up until recently 


to even consider the radiation exposure 


consequences for workers. 


DCAS never followed up on this 


issue and SC&A never questioned DCAS at any 


time after they issued their own July 2006 


audit report of the 2006 Linde Site Profile 


that specifically called for further 


investigation of the tunnel occupancy issue. 


As to the recommendation from the 


Linde Work Group, I would like to emphasize 


that the conclusion that had been reached by 


the Linde Work Groups do not represent the 


consensus among workers interviewed and/or 


that have provided affidavits regarding this 


issue about tunnel construction dates. 


50 percent of the Work Group 


that's participated and have been consulted 


in this tunnel discussion disagree with the 


Linde Work Group's conclusions and do not 


believe in the integrity of the maps that 


have been supplied to DCAS by Praxair. 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

Two of these workers were present 


at a meeting held in Amherst, New York on 


April 30th, and a third worker has provided 


a sworn affidavit contradicting DCAS's 


theory regarding the 1957 tunnel 


construction. 


This worker noted specifically 


that he used the tunnel running between 


Buildings 30 and 31 in 1952 and 1953, 


thereby contradicting DCAS and the Linde 


Work Group's theory that this section of the 


tunnel was constructed in 1957. 


The simplest interpretation of 


the 1957 map provided clearly shows an 


existing 57-inch tunnel running between 


Buildings 30 and 31. I strongly urge the 


Board Members to review all of the 1957 maps 


and assess whether the 57-inch tunnel 


section running between Buildings 30 and 31 


already existed in 1957. 


The existence of the 1936 tunnel 


section near Building 8 is not in dispute. 


And similarly, the Linde workers have never 


disputed that, in 1961, some tunnels were 


extended to meet the utility needs of newly-


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

constructed buildings on the Linde site. 


The 1961 maps simply demonstrate 


the normal protocol at the Linde site to 


extend existing tunnels each time a new 


building was built. Accordingly, the only 


issue in dispute is the existence of the 57­

inch tunnel in 1957. 


Since Buildings 30 and 31 were 


built by the AEC in the 1940s, to have 


suddenly and inexplicably constructed 


tunnels to service those buildings for 


utilities in 1957 does not synchronize with 


the manner by which tunnels were normally 


extended at the Linde site. 


The two-year-plus delay that DCAS 


has created in continuing to further muddy 


the waters on the issue of tunnel 


construction dates only serves to affect 


workers detrimentally by creating additional 


ways to reduce exposure potential for those 


workers not covered by the Linde SEC. 


A worker-friendly posture should 


require DCAS to proceed based on an 


assumption that the tunnels in question 


existed prior to 1957. I believe that once 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

the Members of the Board review the 1957 


maps provided to DCAS, you will conclude 


that there exists no definitive proof on 


these maps that the tunnel section in 


question did not already exist in 1957. 


Specifically, the 1957 map I am 


referring to is identified as, and I quote, 


"Revised and reissued for bids on January 


10th, 1957 and revised, redrawn, and 


released for construction on March 20th, 


1957." 


The 1957 map clearly shows an 


existing 57-inch tunnel section running near 


Buildings 57, 58, and 31, and then winding 


southward between Buildings 30 and 31. 


In conclusion, DCAS and the Linde 


Work Group should meet a very high burden 


and certainly, a much higher burden of 


evidence than what is being presented to the 


Board to justify resolving this matter 


against these workers. 


Resolving this matter against 


these workers would reduce worker exposure 


potentials and thereby directly defeat the 


interests of these sickened workers who have 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

been waiting for far too many years for the 


timely and fair evaluation of their 


individual claims. 


I would like to express my 


sincere gratitude to Dr. Melius, the 


Advisory Board, Dr. Wade, and the Linde Work 


Group for their time and patience. I very 


much appreciate the opportunity to present 


these very important issues for the Board's 


final review. 


I would also like to thank 


Senator Schumer, Senator Gillibrand, and 


Congressman Higgins for their tireless 


efforts and support during this post-SEC 


evaluation process. Most importantly, I 


want to thank all of the Linde workers and 


their families who have waited so patiently 


for so many years while pursuing these SEC 


petitions and Site Profile issues. 


It has truly been an honor 


representing the Linde community. Thank 


you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, 


Antoinette, and just for your information, 


the enlarged maps are displayed. They've 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

been put out on tables at the back of the 


room earlier this afternoon, so people would 


have a chance to look at them today and then 


also tomorrow morning. 


MS. BONSIGNORE: Okay. Thank 


you, Dr. Melius, and I'll send a copy of my 


written statement for the Board's review. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank 


you. 


MS. BONSIGNORE: Thank you very 


much. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Is there 


anybody else on the phone that would like to 


make public comments? 


 (No response.) 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Is there anybody 


else here in the audience? 


 (No response.) 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. And then 


Ted has one written statement that the 


person asked to be read into the record. 


MR. KATZ: So this is a statement 


from Karen Johnson, who addressed you 


yesterday as well. I just have to pull it 


up on my -- okay. So this is from Karen 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

 

Johnson dated June 20th, 2012. 


"My name is Karen Johnson. I'm 


one of two Mallinckrodt petitioners for the 


Weldon Spring Site SEC. Yesterday's 


Advisory Board Meeting was just the latest 


in a seemingly endless series of 


disappointments and frustrations with this 


program." 


"So much science, so many facts, 


figures, curies, charts, calculations, et 


cetera, the list goes on and on. So many 'I 


think', 'I feel', 'believe, 'determine', 


'assign', 'I don't know', 'I'll have to get 


back to you on that', 'I don't have that 


with me today', 'I didn't know we would be 


discussing that', et cetera, and that list 


goes on and on." 


"Just about every delay tactic 


that can be used has been implemented. We 


have pondered the reason Weldon Spring and 


some other sites are taking so long to come 


to closure while others seem to go through 


with a lot less science. Are there some 


other reasons we are not privy to?" 


"Are we caught in the middle of 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

something we know nothing about? There must 


be some explanation. Does NIOSH have an 


agenda we know nothing about? Could it be 


which NIOSH representative you are assigned 


that explains the length of time and 


scrutiny?" 


"Are some of us held to a 


different standard? What a different life a 


lot of workers and their families would have 


had if the workers had been given a fraction 


of this science before they innocently 


walked through that door and sacrificed 


their health and life." 


"There is no justification, in my 


mind, for these claimants and their 


survivors to have to wait these unreasonable 


amounts of time for a decision on their 


SECs. We are asking for an additional 


meeting to be scheduled at the earliest date 


possible. 


"It is unreasonable to expect us 


to patiently wait for two or three months 


more only to be told that more Work Group 


meetings will be necessary or something else 


has been discovered." 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 
 

 

 

"I cannot express the depths of 


sorrow I feel for these workers and their 


families as well as my own. Sincerely, 


Karen L. Johnson, petitioner, Weldon Spring 


Site." 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank 


you. And I think that completes the public 


comment period for the evening and we'll 


reconvene tomorrow morning, I think, 8:15, 


8:30. Good. Thank you. 


(Whereupon, the meeting in the 


above-entitled matter was concluded at 6:20 


p.m.) 


NEAL R. GROSS 

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com